


Because She Promised

by bikadoo_2



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post War, Queen in the North, The Prince who was Promised, and Jon is the way to keep the North safe, in which Sansa needs peace
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:40:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 72,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7376623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bikadoo_2/pseuds/bikadoo_2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She made promises, to keep them safe. And Starks keep their promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, after watching the finale I was having some major Sansa/Jon feels and needed to make something of it. This is what came because of that. This follows a mixture of book and tv, but it will mainly be focused on what has been established in the books. 
> 
> This takes place post war.

**THE PRINCE THAT WAS PROMISED**

The War ends with fire, and blood.  

They are the words of the Queens house. His too, now. _Fire and Blood._ But he cannot think of three other words – three words that he had clung to his entire life.

_Winter is coming._

Winter comes with her, they say.

They call her the Queen of Winter; the Ice Queen.

Queen in the North. The Last Stark. The Red Wolf.

_Sister._

But not really. No, it was cousin now. That’s what Daenerys had decreed, upon receiving a testimony from the Lord of Greywater Watch. But it was not the testimony that meant much to the dragon Queen; no, it was the dragons she kept at her side who knew. From the moment they had seen him, they had recognised the fire within his blood, as they knew of the fire in their own mothers blood.

Rhaegal, the beast named for his father, was the one to claim him. Just as Ghost had done so those many years past, and how Drogon had claimed Daenerys, and Viserion Aegon, Rhaegal took to the bastard Prince. 

_Bastard._

_Snow._

_Prince._

_Targaryen._

**_Stark._ **

The Queen in the North refused to bend the knee to Daenerys in Kings Landing. When the Queen had sent for the Lords and Ladies – the Queens and Princesses – of the seven kingdoms to come before her, there had only been one that had refused.  

He remembered the day well.

“ _And what of the Starks?”_ The Queen had asked. “ _What say their Queen of Winter?”_

Tyrion Lannister, Hand to the Queen, had looked almost hesitant when he delivered the news. After all, the Winter Queen had once been Tyrion’s little wife.

“ _We received a response,”_ Tyrion had confirmed.

“ _And when shall I expect the Queen in the North?”_

Tyrion hadn’t responded; simply he had handed the letter to his Queen. He had watched as his Aunt had torn the seal – a dire wolf seal – and as she read, her stoic mask slipping with anger. 

_“What?”_ He had asked. “ _What does she say?”_

_“She refuses,”_ Daenerys had murmured, her violet eyes turning to her nephew as her dainty hand passed him the letter.

He reached for the parchment, greedy and impatient, as he saw the familiar scrawl that made his body coil within. It was just like fathers had once been; if his memories hadn’t reminded him, he would have been sure he was still at Winterfell, reading a note his father had left for Robb.

“ _Go on then,”_ Daenerys said, her face trained impassively. “ _Read it.”_

_“You have already read it, your Grace,”_ He had said. “ _Surely-“_

_“She is your cousin, after all,”_ Daenerys said, “ _and it is her blood that runs through your veins. You once called her sister, no? Surely you should read her treason.”_

Aegon watched him, at his wife’s side, with the same violet glare – yet it was softer than Daenerys’ gaze. More understanding.

“’ _No Stark shall ever ride South again’,”_ He read, “' _not for any King, or Queen. When a Stark rides South, they die. The Queen in the North, and the Trident will not ride for Kings Landing, but will host the King and Queen in the South at Riverrun, her mother’s home. The Queen rides for Riverrun, in the hopes to broker an alliance with the King and Queen that will bring about peace for both the North and South. Signed Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, Queen of the Trident, Lady of Winterfell, and Warden of the North.”_

The words had felt odd on his lips. He hadn’t said Sansa Starks name in years. She had been a mere passing thought to him, a passing comment to Stannis. _Winterfell is Sansa’s,_ he remembered proclaiming, at Castle Black so long ago. But Sansa had been thought dead, and the Others were coming South – Sansa Stark hadn’t been a thought worthy of his time then. 

_When a Stark rides South, they die._

When he had read those words, he felt he might die too. He thought of the man he thought his father for so long, and the head he had lost. He thought of his Uncle, and Grandfather, whose flesh turned to ash under the orders of a mad King. But Sansa too had ridden South, and lived; the only Stark to ever do so. But he had wondered, then, if the Sansa Stark whose mind was filled with songs had died in the South as she so proclaimed. For when he had heard the rumours of a Queen with hair kissed by fire, and Tully eyes, who rode onto the battlefield with her men in a dress of white, and an army of wolves at her back, he knew that this was not the Sansa Stark who had once been.

Sansa Stark had died in the South, just as Jon Snow had died at the Wall. 

The Queen in the North was who lived now, and he the Targaryen Prince. 

_“What do you make of this, Lord Hand?”_ Daenerys had asked. “ _She is, after all, your wife.”_

Tyrion Lannister had looked uneasy. “ _Wedded, but not bedded, my Queen. A marriage in name only.”_

_“But a marriage nonetheless,”_ Aegon had mused, shaking his head. “ _And they say the Red Wolf is a great beauty, Lord Tyrion. Surely you wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of a ripe wolf for the taking?”_

Jon’s fists clenched, but he was careful of the letter. “ _Sansa Stark is not a thing to be traded, brother. She is a Queen.”_

_“Who doesn’t bend the knee,”_ Daenerys had tutted. “ _She orders me to go to Riverrun? Surely she doesn’t think we’ll oblige.”_

_“She wants peace,”_ Jon had said, his Stark grey eyes glaring at his Aunt. “ _Sansa never wanted the crown. Sansa doesn’t lie – she’s her father’s daughter as much as I am my mother’s son. She’s honourable, and Starks do not break their promises. If she promises peace, she will give it.”_

_“But-“_

Aegon had cut his wife off then, smiling gently. “ _My Queen, I would say my Stark brother knows much more of keeping promises than you or I do. Sansa Stark has returned the North, and the Riverland’s to peace – has brought justice to those that wronged her family, and has done nothing to contest our claim. All she asks for is the North.”_

_“And the Riverland’s?”_ Daenerys had exclaimed. “ _It’s too much, Aegon. Our right is the_ seven _Kingdoms – not five.”_

“ _The Starks were Kings of Winter long before Dragons came,”_ Jon had reminded his Aunt. “ _And Sansa is the daughter of House Tully as much as she is the daughter of House Stark. The Riverland’s came to her because their liege lord was murdered by Lions, and his own son lost.”_

_“So you wish for me to give away our Kingdoms, nephew?”_ Daenerys had asked.

Jon had shaken his head. “ _I ask you to break bread with her – to meet her. We’ll strike an alliance then – a treaty of peace. Sansa is an agreeable woman – she knows more of death than I fear you do, Aunt. If she says she truly wants peace, then she says the truth.”_

Daenerys had regarded him for a moment, before she sighed. “ _Then we shall ride for Riverrun.”_

Riverrun was a sight to behold – a grand castle on the river’s edge. But it was from a hill atop his mount that he saw the majesty of The Queen of the North. 

Wolves were everywhere. On the tents, and banners, the sigil of his mother’s family – the sigil that he once desperately wished to have – decorated Riverrun in grey, white and green. He had become so used to the black and red of his father’s family that seeing the Stark sigil, the wolf of Eddard Stark, being flown proudly was enough to soothe the uneasiness he had felt for so long.

Uneasiness at becoming a Prince, when he was once a bastard. Uneasiness at his new family, when his old family was gone. Uneasiness at the dragons, when the wolves were all he knew. 

Jon Snow would never become used to the dragons, not really. While Rhaegal accepted him, and Jon accepted Rhaegal, when he rode the beast he felt like a true dragon, and to feel like a true dragon was to feel like a false wolf. It was why he had led the court on horseback, with Aegon by his side, while his Aunt would come with Drogon. It was a show of power, after all – Daenerys wanted the Wolf Queen to know just how much power the Dragon Queen could wield. 

Jon looked as Drogon roared overhead, the vast length of his wings shading the sun from their backs, as he flew above. Jon could see his Aunt on Drogon, perched in the saddle as she controlled the beast to fly forth. 

Drogon landed near the riverbank, and the Northern forces gaped at the beast, just as they had done when they fought the Others. Jon dismounts, Ghost at his side, as he kneels to his Queen. 

Their party is on their knees, but the North is not. The Northern forces do not bend the knee, for their Queen is not dismounting the dragon; no, she stands at the drawbridge with two wolves beside her. 

Jon stands as soon as his eyes find her. 

_Sansa Stark._

_The Queen in the North._

_The Queen of Winter._

Her eyes were ice, and her hair fire. Some say that she had the look of the south, but she looked as North as a weirwood tree; with pale skin and scarlet stained hair. _Kissed by fire,_ the wildlings said, but Sansa Stark was not kissed by fire – she was embraced by ice. She looked like Winter, and yet had the promise of spring; she looked like hope, despite being shrouded in sadness. She looked like Eddard Stark, and Catelyn Tully – she looked like his past, and he wondered how she had caused him so much pain with one look. 

She wore a coat of grey pelts, just as her eyes of ice wear their sorrow. In her scarlet hair rests a bronze crown – a bronze crown that had once belonged to their brother. _Her brother,_ Jon corrected himself. Jon Targaryen is slowly corroding away what was left of Jon Snow, but it was Jon Snows family – his father, and his siblings – that Jon Targaryen could not leave behind.

He didn’t know what he expected; maybe a small girl, with her copper hair elaborately styled to emulate the southern court. Maybe he expected a long limbed teen, who was quick to remind anyone that thought to ask that he was her _half_ -brother. _Base born,_ she had once sneered at him, as her mother had taught her. Maybe he expected the warrior Queen who fought for Winterfell, dressed in white with the blood of her enemies on her skirts, and the wolves at her back. 

But she wasn’t any of those.

He had heard that she looked the image of Catelyn Tully – that she was a great southern beauty. But the North is in her blood; ice flows through her veins just as fire does his. And with the crown of the North in her blood stained hair, and two wolves by her side, Sansa Stark looks like the North.

But it is the large scar, from her right cheek to chin, that makes him gape.

She is not the Sansa Stark he remembered.

“Prince Jon?”

He had been caught staring.

But Jon wondered, as he moved towards the King and Queen, what the Queen of Winter truly thought of him. Did she still sneer, and think of his base birth? Did she still regard him with the disgust her mother had? He doesn’t know. Sansa Stark had been gone from his mind for years; now she stood in front of him, the Lady of Winterfell, the head of House Stark, and so like their father. _My Uncle._

The Queen in the North does not bend the knee, but her Lords do. He recognises them, from his time at the lowest table in Winterfell’s keep. Northern Houses, full of pride and honour, and they were kneeling at the behest of their Queen to the South. 

“Queen Sansa,” Daenerys said, a smile on her lips. It is the smile she gives to those she doesn’t trust – a smile to put them at ease. 

“ _Smiling doesn’t hurt, Jon,”_ Daenerys had once told him. “ _People need to see you smile – they need to see your compassion and your gentleness, just as they need to see your strength. A good Queen knows that.”_

She doesn’t return the Queen in the Souths’ smile, and that shocks Jon. Sansa gave everyone, save for him, the privilege of her beautiful smile, and now as she stood in front of Queen, her porcelain face is nothing but cold.

And those eyes of hers, that so resemble the ice of the wall, have not left his. The Queen of Winter doesn’t respond, as she should have – no, the Queen of Winter simply stared.

Whispers began to arise from the line of courtiers that have followed them to Riverrun; whispers of concern. A snub from the Warden of the North, who wore its crown, was not to be taken lightly by the King and Queen in the South, who would much prefer to be the King and Queen of all seven Kingdoms, rather than five.

But the Queen of Winter made no move to acknowledge them. 

Instead, she stepped forward, to him. 

Her eyes of ice melt away, and suddenly there she is: Sansa. Her hand reaches up to his cheek, and he stilled; frozen by the promise of a touch from the Winter Queen. Sansa had never touched him with affection before; no, she hated it. But this Sansa, this Sansa who looked so sorrowful, reached out and hesitantly cradles his face.

Her hand leaves his cheek as soon as her skin had grazed his, but he had still felt the ice of her fingers, and she had felt the warmth of his skin.

“Jon,” She whispered, her eyes holding his before she moves a black curl from his cheek. Her eyes search his, and for a moment, he wonders what she’s looking for as she gazed at his face, as if she’s trying to remember. 

And that’s when it ends.

“Queen Daenerys,” The Queen in the North said, turning to her as her lip twitches. “King Aegon.”

_They call her the Queen of Winter,_ Jon thinks, _and_ _they have reason to._

“I welcome you to Riverrun,” Sansa said, her voice cordial, “and I offer you my hospitality. May I present you to the Lord of Riverrun, Lord Brynden Tully. My Uncle.” 

Sansa introduced her Lords, and the King and Queen introduced theirs. And Jon stared. He cannot help it. 

She is so different; so changed. For a moment, she had been there – her hand on his cheek and her eyes as unburdened as they had once been. But then it had frozen, and the Sansa Stark that had left Winterfell that day so long ago was gone. 

_Who is she,_ he wondered, _if not Sansa? What happened to her?_

Two wolves were by her side, and as soon as Ghost sees them, there is a yip of excitement. Jon doesn’t understand, until he realises. These wolves are no normal wolves; their size alone screaming what they were. And Jon knew who they were. How could he not? They were the only ones left: Nymeria, and Shaggydog. 

It feels just as the knives did, when they stabbed him at Castle Black. The realisation that these were his sibling’s wolves – these were his family’s wolves – was enough to draw attention from those being introduced. 

But if Sansa thinks to look back to Jon, she does not. 

She simply welcomes them to Riverrun. 

It is when the Queen introduces Tyrion Lannister that the Queen in the North smiles. If it could even be called a smile, Jon wasn’t sure – but it was more than any had gotten from her before. 

“This is-“ 

“Husband,” Sansa said, her eyes meeting the dwarfs face easily. “I cannot say I have missed you in the time we have spent apart, but I will not deny that I was surprised to hear of your survival.”  

Tyrion looks dumbfound, before he chuckles. “My Queen, you are charming.” 

Sansa narrows her eyes. “I did not mean it to be charming, Lord Lannister. Nothing would give me greater comfort in knowing that the Lannister name was dead.” 

“Lord Tyrion has been a faithful supporter of the true King and Queen,” Queen Daenerys said. “To wish death upon him, Queen Sansa, is a heinous misjudgement.” 

Queen Sansa looked down at Daenerys, perplexed. “I have never wished Tyrion death, your grace. What would you give you that idea?” 

Daenerys cocked a brow, but she didn’t say any more. 

Sansa gave Tyrion one last nod, before she turned to her forces who watched her. 

“I bid you leave to be refreshed,” The Queen in the North said, looking over the men she commanded. “And then we shall talk.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sansa negotiates, and Jon is stolen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm posting the first few chapters now, but hopefully with the speed at which I'm writing this I'll have it completed by the end of the month. But I do work full time, so no promises.

**THE QUEEN OF WINTER**

 

_Winter is here._

It had been for a long time, now.

She thought of Winterfell, and how the snow fell so heavy there. She thought of Ayra, and Rickon, who had begged her not to leave. She thought of how she had watched Robb, and Bran in the training yard, so long ago. _Bran,_ she thought, clutching at her chest as walks to her chambers, _Robb. Mother. Father. Bran. Jon. Arya. Rickon._

 _Jon._

_Arya._

_Rickon._

That was all she had left. 

Bran, lost to beyond the wall and the others murdered. _Well, except the Lady_ , Sansa thought, thinking back to the mutilated corpse that she had been greeted by at her own coronation. _But she wasn’t truly mother._

Seeing him again, the Prince who was Promised, the Vanquisher of the Others, had been like seeing her father. She had almost faltered; had almost fainted when she saw him dismount. _Father,_ she had thought, her eyes wide and her heart beating like a hummingbird in her chest as she wondered what sort of trickery this is. But it was not father – no, it was the bastard Targaryen Prince. 

 _Jon Snow._

Strong, black bearded, and so like _him._ She thought back to that day, that dreaded day, and she can’t stomach it, the thought of the Great Sept of Baelor, and Joffrey, and Cersei and her father, his head being taken, again and again and again and again. She could still hear her own scream, curdling and strangled, as she watched her father be murdered. For days after, her ears rung like bells. 

It was Nymeria who kept her standing upright, when Jon Snow finally stops before her – his eyes trapped on hers. She had wanted to weep, but she remained strong, her hand twisted in Nymeria’s fur. She remembered so vividly when the wolf was a pup how she hated Sansa. But now she was more affectionate than she had ever been. From the moment Arya rode through the gates of Winterfell, on the back of the wolf that had ran, Nymeria loved Sansa. 

Shaggydog, too, loved her. Rickon told her it was because they knew how lonely she had been without Lady, but Arya had claimed it was because they knew she was the Queen of Winter.

“ _But I won’t be when Rickon comes of age,”_ Sansa had reminded her, looking at the boy that so often looked like Robb. If she shut her eyes, she could pretend – oh, how she could pretend – that he was. 

 _But that’s unfair to Rickon_ , she told herself whenever her broken mind goes there. _But what’s the harm,_ the broken part of her whispers, _in having comfort in Robb being alive?_

But he’s not Robb. He’s Rickon.  

 _Robb is dead. His head taken, and Grey Winds sewn onto his body. Robb is dead. Like father. Like mother._

She had to remind herself, for it was dangerous to forget. 

“ _Rickon is as wild as that wolf of his,”_ Ayra had replied. “ _The Northern Lords barely tolerate him when they come to feast – they chose you, Sansa. You’re their Queen.”_

 _“But I am a woman,”_ Sansa had told her. “ _A woman has never ruled the North before.”_

Ayra had laughed. “ _What the fucking hell do you think you’re doing then?”_

They had begged her to come. When she had received the raven, beckoning her to Kings Landing, they had reminded her that Jon would be there. But she refused; she would never go South, not for any dragon King or Queen. She knew it could have been seen as irresponsible – her Lords advised against it – but she couldn’t force herself to return South. She would rather endure a thousand nights with Petyr again if it meant she would never return South.

When she had put forth the idea to host the crown of the South at Riverrun, Arya had been adamant she was going. She wanted to see her brother, but Sansa would have no siblings of hers near the dragons. She had to protect them, for Mother and Fathers sakes. _I promised._   

“ _But I am his sister,”_ Ayra had screamed. “ _I am not a child anymore, Sansa. I spent years by myself – I survived years by myself – and you’re telling me I have to stay here and guard Rickon?”_

 _“It is too dangerous,”_ Sansa had simply said, “ _and I can’t risk it. I can’t risk them taking you from me.”_

 _“How would they take me from you?”_ Arya had retorted. “ _No one can take me.”_

 _“No,”_ Sansa had whispered. “ _You will see Jon Snow again, but not at Riverrun.”_

 _“You promise?”_ Arya had asked, her grey eyes – fathers eyes – glaring at her. It’s then, when Arya looks at Sansa like that, that Sansa remembers the girl her sister had been, and not the faceless girl that had been returned to her. 

She had promised. 

And Starks kept their promises. 

“What were you thinking?” Sansa berated herself, her nails digging into her arms. She was sure it would bleed, as all her other scars had. How could she have ignored the King and Queen? How could she have allowed herself to be so blinded by a ghost? “Stupid, _stupid._ You’re just a stupid, stupid girl.” 

“My Queen?” 

Sansa turned to looked at Jeyne, and she sighed, putting her hand over her chest. “You scared me, Jeyne.”

“I’m sorry, my Queen,” Jeyne murmured, ducking her head to hide her lack of nose. “I didn’t mean to.” 

Sansa shook her head, a gentle smile overcoming her features as she gathered Jeyne into her arms. “I know, Jeyne, I know. It was just …” 

Jeyne nodded, looking to her. “I saw you and Snow.” 

“Targaryen, now,” Sansa murmured, before her teeth began to gnaw at her lips. “When he was there, staring at me, for a moment I thought … I thought …” 

She couldn’t finish her sentence, and she was up again, her eyes of ice glassing over as they so often did. Jeyne watched on, wondering if Sansa was gone again but she was her eyes would have disappeared into her head like they always did when she changed skins. 

“Sansa?” 

Sansa broke her gaze, meeting Jeyne’s concerned eyes. “Don’t worry, Jeyne. I’m not flying.” 

 _Flying,_ Sansa thought with a smile, imagining herself high in the sky like she did with the sparrows when she had been Alayne Stone. It seemed so long ago now, when she had felt so far from herself and called Baelish father, that she had found the North within her. 

 _“Cat, I always knew you’d be mine_ ,” He had whispered, and Sansa felt as if he was there, his breath hot and his hands on her, all over her, bruising her, scarring her. 

She thought then of how her mother’s name had become her own, and she had become the ghost of Catelyn Stark for a man who had loved her so. _Cat, Cat, Cat,_ he’d grunt. _Cat, gods, I love you,_ he would hiss. _Cat, Cat, Cat._  

But she wasn’t Cat; she was Sansa. Sansa, of House Stark. Not a Stone, or a Tully, or a Lannister. _Stark._

Sansa thought then of how wrong she had been to lose herself to her past when she had seen Jon. So much like father, he was, with his unruly black hair and his grey eyes. And for a moment, Sansa had thought that it was her Lord Father. _You’re just like him,_ a voice whispers, _you thought a living man a ghost and treated him as such. You truly are Alayne._

“What was it like?” Jeyne asked, quietly, as the fire began to crack. “Seeing a ghost?”

Sansa smiled slightly, her eyes glazing over as she thought of Jon Snows face. “As it always is when I see them. Horrible.”

 

* * *

 

He was there, with them, when they came to talk.

Sansa was surrounded by her most trusted council – Maege Mormont at her right side, and the Blackfish on her left. With Nymeria at her feet, Sansa knew Arya was here as well.  It had been a promise made to Arya, a pact, to bring Nymeria and Shaggydog. Sansa had felt uneasy leaving Winterfell without their wolves, but Arya had felt uneasy about leaving Sansa without her.

 _My sister, the wild wolf,_ Sansa thought as she felt Nymeria grumble at her feet, her eyes wide and alert.

When the King, Queen and Prince were seated, Sansa leant forward, motioning for the cupbearer to fill the dragon’s cups. They came to fill hers, but she placed her hand over the cup.

“None for me,” Sansa murmured. She couldn’t remember the last time she had sipped at wine, but she didn’t need to. It was an escape that a Queen couldn’t afford. “Thank you, though.”

“My Queen,” The cupbearer whispered.

Sansa sighed, glancing at Maege who was staring that hardened gaze at the dragon Queen. “Shall we begin, then?”

“A good idea, your grace,” Lord Tyrion said. “As Hand to the Queen-“

“I want our marriage annulled,” Sansa cut in, her lips pursed. “As soon as possible.” 

The King, and Queen in the South seemed shocked that the issue of her marriage would be the first she would raise, but Sansa wanted no name of Lannister to be hers. It had been a plague on her for the years she had spent in this false marriage, and despite the problems she knew they must address, Sansa had no wish to remain Lady Lannister any longer. 

“Tyrion is not a cruel man,” Queen Daenerys said, those violet eyes of her narrowed. “He could be a good husband, and you might find comfort in the marriage; comfort that you won’t have many Lords at your door demanding your hand.” 

“A good husband,” Sansa echoed, a laugh escaping her. _You cannot be Sansa here,_ the voice told her, _you must be the Wolf. You must be the Queen._ “Where would I find comfort in the marriage to a man whose family paid for turncoats to murder my mother, and brother at a wedding? Do you know what they did to my brother, your grace? Do you know what the Frey’s and the Lannister’s, and the Bolton’s did when they committed treason?” 

Daenerys pursed her lips, her eyes moving to Jon’s. “I have heard the story well enough.” 

Sansa ignored her, continuing. “They invited my brother, and my mother into a home under the safeguard of breaking bread. They say my brother was stabbed in the heart by Lord Bolton; his dire wolf’s head was sewn onto his body, while they rode him through the camps. And my mother, do you wish to hear of what my husband’s family did to her? The woman who brushed my hair and held me when I cried and gave me my siblings and promised that life would be happy, well, do you know what they did to her? They cut her throat to the bone.”

King Aegon cleared his throat. “We have all suffered greatly. The Lannister’s murdered, and raped my mother and sister, and I do not hold Lord Tyrion accountable.”

Sansa ignored him. She wanted to scream that Aegon hadn’t even known his mother; that while the acts were monstrous, he knew not of the pain that she always suffered.

“ _No one has a monopoly on pain, sweetling,”_ He had once said to her, his breath fanning over her face while he moved inside her. “ _You weep about one dead man, while others weep for all they once knew. How can you think yourself special, sweetling, when even pain belongs to others?”_

“While I appreciate your suffering, King Aegon, you are not being asked to share his bed. What would I tell my children, if I sired any, of why I hate my husband’s name? What would I say when my children ask of their grandparents? Of Eddard Stark, murdered by _his_ nephew, and of Catelyn Stark, murdered by _his_ father. How would you propose, King Aegon, that I would survive the daily torment and knowledge that my House by marriage is the reason my House by blood is nearly gone?”

Queen Daenerys sighed. “We did not wish to upset you, your grace.” 

Sansa cocked a brow, leaning back into her chair. “I am not upset, your grace. I am simply asking for one thing: an annulment from a marriage made to torment me.”

“And what of your lords and ladies?” King Aegon asked, annoyed by the Northern Queens insolence. “Would they turn away Lannisports gold?”

Sansa laughed then; a bellowing laugh that shocked everyone in the room. Turning to Maege Mormont, Sansa motioned to the King. “My Lady Mormont, please tell King Aegon who murdered your daughter Dacey.” 

“The Lannisters,” Maege sneered, her hands digging into the arms of the chair. “And their dogs.”

“And Uncle?” Sansa turned, looking to the Blackfish. “Uncle, what of your loss? Who is responsible for the murder of your nephew, niece, and your banner men?”

“The Lannisters,” The Blackfish spat. “And the Freys."  

“And what of you, Lord Manderly?” Sansa asked. “What of your son, Lord Wendel?”

“The Lannisters, and Frey’s murdered him,” Lord Manderly snarled. “And I had them pay for it, too, those fucking cunts.”   

“But let us ask Lord Umber,” Sansa murmured, turning to the Northern Lord. “What did they to do to your House, Lord Umber?”

“Murdered my eldest boy,” Lord Umber hissed, “and kept me for a prisoner to do as they please.” 

Sansa turned back to Aegon, whose face was impassive. But his wife looked annoyed with her husband’s ignorance – for Aegon had dared walked into a room of those who had suffered at the hands of a family he asked their Queen to stay married too.

“I will forgive you, King Aegon,” Sansa murmured, “for not remembering how many Northern houses suffered at the Lannister’s’ hands. But the North remembers, and they will never let their Queen remain the wife of one – even if it is one as tolerable as Lord Tyrion.” 

“Tolerable?” Tyrion asked, laughing. “I dare say, that is a fine compliment, little wife.” 

Sansa’s lips twitched, before she continued. “I simply wish for the name Lannister to be gone from me. I fear I have enough scars from the Lannister’s to remember them by, so I truly do not need their name as well.”

“And if we do not see reason for the annulment?” Daenerys asked. “What if we asked of you to return to Casterly Rock, with your husband, for the North to have peace?”

He came to her mind then, as he forced her into his lap and put his lips to her ear.

 _“I could give you to Harry the heir,”_ He had murmured, twisting a raven lock of hair in his hands. “ _He is quite gallant, isn’t he, Alayne? You like Gallant knights – you liked Joffrey, and you so liked Loras, although they weren’t going to sell you to Loras, were they? It was Willas, that’s right. Willas Tyrell.”_

“I am done being traded,” Sansa snapped. “But if my Kingdom deemed it so, I would happily return to Tyrion Lannister’s dwelling.”

They looked at her, surprised, until she continued, “but then I’m afraid Lord Tyrion would find himself a widower, for I would throw myself to the ocean and drown. Or mayhaps I shall take a sword to my throat, as my father, mother, and brother before me.”

Silence consumed the room, before King Aegon nodded stiffly. “Then, with the agreeance of Lord Tyrion, it shall be done.” 

Sansa nodded. “I thank you, your grace.”

“And what of your other requests?” Queen Daenerys asked. “I did not conquer these seven kingdoms for only five of them, your grace.”

“And I did not fight for the North to give it away to a dragon Queen who knows nothing of the North, or it’s people,” Sansa bit back. “You may be a Targaryen, my Queen, and I will happily swear fealty to the Southern crown, but the North and the Riverland’s stand to be independent. They have chosen their Queen – their crown – and I will never allow that to be taken from them.”

“And it’s convenient, then, my lady, that you wear the crown,” Queen Daenerys murmured.

Sansa chuckled, her voice coming out breathless. “I would give my life for Robb to wear this crown – for him to be alive and well. I would return to the South forever, and be a prisoner if it meant that the North could have Eddard Stark alive as it’s Warden. I would go to Casterly Rock, if it meant my brother Bran returned as Lord of Winterfell. I would die a thousand times for everything to be as it was, if it meant my family was safe,” Sansa paused, her nails digging into her cup. “But my family will never live as they were. Robb will never rise again, and my … my father’s bones have not even been laid to rest for more than two moons gone. I would trade everything if it meant that I would not need to wear the crown, but I do. Until my brother is chosen by the North when he reaches his age.” 

“So you intend for your brother to be King?” Queen Daenerys asked. 

Sansa shrugged. “If my Lords and Ladies choose him, then so it must be. My brother is but nine, and is as wild as his wolf, despite my attempts to tame him. I will rule until I need not.”

“But you do not intend to raise your armies against your brother?” Aegon asked.

Sansa laughed again. “We Starks are no Baratheon’s, or Targaryen’s, or Lannister’s, for that matter. My armies are Rickons armies, by birth right – Brans, if he is ever recovered.”

“That is the cripple?” Daenerys questioned, trying to recall. 

“Aunt,” Jon warned, and Sansa felt her heart swell. 

Sansa looked to Jon, having forgotten he was there. He had always been quite. _Jon Snow. Jon Targaryen._ When had he ever become the man that sat before her, the Targaryen prince who had vanquished the others and had fulfilled the prophecy. Sansa almost smiled at how much of a song this Jon Snow of hers was. If she was a girl, she may have swooned. 

But she was no longer a girl. 

At eight, and ten, Sansa was a woman; a Queen. She had been forced to grow so quickly when she was South, that sometimes it is hard to recall how young she truly is.

“The cripple,” Sansa murmured, “is called _Bran. Brandon._ He loved climbing, and he wanted to be a Knight. And he is gone too. But if we are to talk of my family, you will refrain from referring to a beloved brother as a ‘cripple’.” 

Daenerys inclined her head, and gave a small nod. “Apologies.” 

Sansa closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I fear that we have come here to talk, and I have become lost in my past. I think it is I who I apologise, Queen Daenerys. Pain controls us all so easily.” 

For the first time since they had entered the room, Daenerys gave Sansa a small smile. “I understand pain, my lady. It controls just as easily as it destroys.” 

Sansa nodded. “But I have talked for too long. Please, tell me of what you wish and I will try to fulfil the wishes.”

“We want you to bend the knee,” Aegon said, “and if you do not, we are not afraid to reign fire over your ice.”

 _The North has suffered too much,_ Sansa thought, _and it will not withstand fire._

Daenerys placed her hand atop her husbands. “A last resort we do not wish to use.” 

Sansa pursed her lips. “The North is its own Kingdom. I will not bend the knee if you’re asking me to give you the North – my Lords and Ladies did not fight for independence to have it ripped from them because I was afraid.”

“So you will not yield the crown?” Daenerys questioned. “You will not recognise us as the King and Queen of Westeros?”

Sansa’s nails tore into the skin of her hands under the table. _You are the Queen,_ Sansa told herself, _do not be afraid._ “The North and the Riverland’s will be independent. They will be as they were, before your forefathers conquered.” 

“You are asking for war,” Aegon snarled, smashing his hand on the table. “Do you truly wish for us to kill your people?” 

“If you knew the North, you would know that they would never bend the knee to a Targaryen King or Queen after what they have done to the Starks,” Sansa murmured calmly, her heart pounding. “I cannot make them yield, even as their Queen.” 

“Then you are no _true_ Queen,” Aegon snapped. 

Sansa shrugged. “Maybe. I know my people, though, and I know that they do not wish for another war.” 

“Then why are you baiting us?” Daenerys asked. “The crown of the North will not be able to exist without bending the knee.” 

Sansa pursed her lips, her stomach churning as she realised this was it. This was when she was the Queen, and not simply Sansa. This was when she fulfilled her promise. 

“I suggest that the Crown of the North, and the Crown of the South be joined,” Sansa said, watching as her council stood. 

“My Queen, you mustn’t!!” Maege exclaimed. 

“You are a fool, Stark, if you think we’ll _ever_ bend the knee-“ 

Sansa held her hand up to Lord Manderly. “Lord Manderly, you would do well to refrain from what you were going to say.” 

“If you bend the knee, you are no Queen of mine,” Lord Manderly bit out, to which Sansa inclined her head in his direction.

“Then I am your Queen, for I have no intention to bend the knee,” Sansa murmured, before turning back to the King and Queen of the South.

“You wish to join the crowns, and yet have no intention of bending the knee?” Aegon scoffed, shaking his head as he looked to his wife. “We have met with a little girl playing games, wife, not a Queen.” 

“When I said I wanted to join the crowns, I meant it,” Sansa said, swallowing her fear. “I simply meant to join our crowns, our houses, and our families by marriage.” 

Daenerys cocked a brow. “And would you have Aegon forsake me for you, the Queen of Winter? Surely you can’t truly want that.” 

Sansa laughed. “When I said I would never go South again, my lady, I truly meant it. I meant a different brother – a different Targaryen.” 

 _He’s not a Stark,_ she had convinced herself upon retching one night as she thought of what she was going to do, _He’s a Targaryen. Son of Lyanna and Rhaegar. He’s not my brother._

“I would take Prince Jon as my King,” Sansa explained, keeping her eyes away from his, “and our children will be loyal to both crowns. If the King and Queen in the South do not produce any heirs, our firstborn will be the heir to the Southern crown and our second, heir to the Northern.” 

“And of the Riverland’s?” 

“I wish to grant the Riverland’s back to the Tully’s,” Sansa explained, “but as my Uncle is older, he may not be able to sire an heir. Therefore, my brother’s children will be Tully’s.”

“And what if your brother wishes for the Crown?” Daenerys asked. “A moment ago you said you would forsake it if he wished. How can we give you Jon if you can’t guarantee the Northern throne?” 

“My brother is more a wildling than a Lord,” Sansa murmured, closing her eyes as she made a promise she didn’t know if she could keep. “My brother will not want the crown, that I can promise you.” 

 _I can’t._

_But I need to keep them safe. I need to keep the North safe. I’m so sorry, Rickon._

“And if you marry, shall you come South?” Daenerys asked. 

“Never,” Sansa murmured. “His grace, and I will rule at Winterfell. He may go as he pleases, but I shall never go South past the Riverland’s.” 

“What if we need your forces?” Aegon questioned. 

Sansa closed her eyes, before she glared at the two monarchs. “If ever need be, I would ride with my men south, as their Queen. And my husband would as well.” 

“And you would take a man who was once your brother as your husband?” Aegon asked, a cocky smile twisting onto his lips. 

 _“Half-brother,”_ She had corrected, sneering almost. “ _A bastard.”_

“It will keep the North safe,” Sansa said. “And I am their Queen. This is what I must do.” 

“Then it is done.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You will marry Sansa Stark, and you will drape a cloak of red and black on her shoulders. Our crowns shall be joined, and there shall be peace.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, fuck it, I'm posting this chapter tonight as well. I'll be posting the next chapter this time tomorrow. Don't particularly know how long this story will be, but lets hope I don't fuck it up, eh?

**PRINCE JON**

 

“It is done?” 

Married. 

He was to be married to his sister. 

 _Cousin._

**_Stranger._ **

“If she hadn’t suggested it, I would have,” Daenerys said with a shrug. “She’s a Queen – she knows what’s good for her people. You’ll do this for us, Jon.” 

“Do this?” Jon asked, looking at his Aunt and brother. “You’re asking me to marry a girl who was once my _sister.”_

“But she’s not, is she?” Aegon said, shrugging. “Dany’s our Aunt, and I’m still with her. You know we’re not exactly the holiest bunch when it comes to outsourcing blood, brother.” 

“No,” Jon said shaking his head. “I will not do this. I will not marry her.” 

Daenerys turned to him with a glare. “You would refuse being King in the North for what? For pride? Or is it for honour?” 

“My father is-“ 

“-Rhaegar Targaryen,” Daenerys said, stepping towards him with narrowed eyes. “Eddard Stark may have raised you, but it is not his blood that runs through your veins – it is that of my brother and Lyanna Stark, Sansa’s Aunt. It is that of _fire._ If you do not agree, we will have to burn the North.” 

Jon wanted to scream. _Sansa is my sister,_ his whole body screamed, _this is wrong._ “Are you ordering me, your grace?” 

Daenerys narrowed her eyes, before she gave a singular nod. “You will marry Sansa Stark, and you will drape a cloak of red and black on her shoulders. Our crowns shall be joined, and there shall be _peace_.” 

“Fine,” Jon snarled through gritted teeth. “I’ll marry her.”

 

* * *

 

They say when Robb Stark heard of his father’s death, they found him with a ruined sword and a tree with gaping cuts in it.  

When Jon thought of Robb, he felt pain. When Jon thought of his … Uncle, he felt pain. But when Jon thought of Sansa, he felt anger. 

She hadn’t paid him any mind when she had spoken the words that sentenced him to a loveless marriage, something he had never wanted. He thought then Ygritte, and her hair. _So like Sansa’s._

Again, and again, and again, Jon punched at the tree, until his hands were bloody and he was out of breath. What would his life be, now? He thought he had once known what his life was to be; he was to be a crow, and that was it. He was to be a man of the Nights Watch, and his life would be at the wall. But then he was betrayed with knives, and given a crown of truth by a new Queen with silver hair. 

He had only become used to the walls of the Red Keep; of the politics of Kings Landing. Life would be as one of the three heads of the dragon, he had assumed. _Wrong,_ he thought as he continued to punch, _I was wrong._

And then it had changed in an instant; one wish from the Queen of Winter, and his life, or what little life he had left, was given to her. She hadn’t even looked at him – her eyes of ice unyielding from Daenerys and Aegon, but he? The man who was to be her husband? The man who was to share her bed? She spared but one glance to him, and that had been the most confusing of all. 

Sansa Stark had never touched him like that before. Sansa Stark had never cradled his cheek, or whispered his name. Sansa Stark had looked down upon him, and whispered Bastard when he wished it was brother. Sansa Stark had been her mother’s image, and in that image Jon had never found any warmth. 

“Don’t be too down, bastard,” Tyrion said from behind him, “Sansa will be a dutiful little wife; she’ll give you many children that look like Stark and who knows, maybe you’ll be able to call your son Eddard. But will he be a Targaryen, or a Stark? Or maybe you’d prefer he’d be a Snow.” 

Jon turned around, and spat at Tyrion’s feet. “Fuck off.” 

“No kinder words to my ears,” Tyrion laughed, before his scarred face alit in realisation. “Who would have thought that two of the the Queen of Winters husbands would be having a conversation about what to call her children. I wonder if they’ll write a song about us, for my dear Sansa does love a song.” 

“Or maybe they’ll call me Jaimie, and she Cersei,” Jon spat, shaking his head as he collapsed beneath the tree. “She’s my _sister._ ” 

“And that’s the quickest way to get a limp cock, bastard,” Tyrion said, standing before him as he sighed. “I know this is not what you wanted. I know that. But who would you have other than Sansa? Princess Arianne? Maybe Daenerys could take two husbands, for I see the way you look at her.” 

Jon flushed, shaking his head. “I don’t look at my Aunt in any way.”

“Don’t be ashamed, bastard,” Tyrion laughed, “she is the most beautiful women in all the Seven Kingdoms, and maybe even beyond them. But so is Sansa Stark.” 

Jon knew Sansa was beautiful. He had always known Sansa was beautiful. 

“ _And who shall be crowned Queen of Love and Beauty?”_ Robb had asked as they played at a tourney, his child like face grinning at his brother. 

Jon had smiled brightly, before he turned to where Sansa sat with one of her dolls. “ _Sansa, will you be my Queen of Love and Beauty?”_

Sansa had blinked at the hastily prepared crown of wildflowers, before she nodded. Sansa could never deny a compliment, even if it was from a bastard like him. When he had placed the crown into her hair, and Lady Stark had rounded the corner, he had never been so afraid. 

Lady Stark had quickly taken the crown from her daughter’s hair, and shook her head at Sansa, as if to tell her she knew better. When Lady Stark had taken her daughter back to her lesson, the crown of wildflowers had fallen into a muddy puddle. 

“ _Don’t worry,”_ Robb said, nudging him as he pointed out where Arya toddled, “ _You can always crown Arya Queen of Love and Beauty.”_

“It’s quite funny, isn’t it?” Tyrion mused as he offered Jon a swig from his beer skin. “Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons, has hair of ice, while Sansa Stark, the Queen of Winter, with ice as eyes, has hair of fire? Truly, is this not the song your father once talked about?” 

“If I ever have to hear about a song of ice and fire again, I think I will hang myself,” Jon admitted, taking a swig. 

“Hmmm,” Tyrion nodded. “It’d be tempting to mention it, just to rid the Red Keep of your sulking face.” 

Jon chortled despite himself. “It won’t be necessary any more – I am being sold to the North.” 

“As their King,” Tyrion reminded gently. “As Head of House Stark. To live at Winterfell, your home. Surely you must be glad?” 

Jon shook his head. “How could I be glad to be forced into a loveless marriage?” 

“Loveless?” Tyrion echoed. “Oh, no, Bastard … if you think your marriage will be loveless, then you obviously do not know Sansa Stark.” 

“She thinks me a bastard,” Jon said simply. “Always has, always will.” 

“You are one,” Tyrion said with a shrug. “And from what I’ve heard, Sansa Stark knows more than most about being a bastard. They say when Brienne of Tarth found her in the Vale, she was under the name Alayne Stone – the bastard born daughter Lord Petyr Baelish.” 

“I didn’t hear that tale,” Jon snapped, glaring at long claw. 

“That much is obvious,” Tyrion chuckled. “Mayhaps, my lord Prince, you should ask our Winter Queen what she has suffered through before you decide that you hate her.” 

“I don’t hate her,” Jon said honestly. “I don’t think I ever could.” 

Tyrion looked at him incredulously, before he nodded. “Good.”

 

* * *

 

She wore the crown as the mountains wore their snow. 

She wore her gown of grey as the wolves wore their fur, and her hair as if the dragons themselves had showered her in their flames. 

He knew the crown she wore. After all, it had once belonged to their brother. _Her brother, now._  

The story goes that Sansa had been gifted the crown by the leader of a sellsword brotherhood, who had claimed the crown after they had found it on the river bed of the Twins. But as Sansa walked into the great hall, with the crown of her brother fastened in her Tully hair, Jon could not help but wonder if it was as uncomfortable as he thought it to be. 

 _Wearing the crown of a brother who died because of it,_ Jon thought as he watched the Queen of Winter take her seat _, how could she not hate it?_

Jon knew he did. 

“My good Lords, and Ladies,” Sansa began, smiling widely, “we feast tonight for a peace has been struck by the North and South, friends and allies once again!”

The Great Hall erupted in cheers, which only fuelled Sansa’s smile. Jon had hardly seen a twitch to the Queen of Winter’s lips, and yet she smiled for people, who seemed to revel in their Queens delight. The smile on her lips was as bewitching as a falling star in the night sky, but it was as genuine as the promise of a Lannister; it held no true happiness, for her eyes screamed the ice she was made from. 

“The King and Queen in the South have agreed to acknowledge the North, and the Riverland’s as independent Kingdoms,” Sansa bellowed, to the delight of the Hall who roared with agreeance. _Nothing is as loud as the North_ , Ned Stark had once told Jon had commented on the quiet of the wolf wood. “And for that, the King and Queen in the South will have the Norths love.” 

His Aunt, and brother seemed taken aback by the happiness that spewed from the Hall upon Sansa’s words.

“They love us,” Daenerys murmured in awe, her voice barely above a whisper, “they love us, Aegon.” 

While they may have conquered, Targaryen’s were not loved by all. But with a word from their Queen, the harshness of the North melted away like Snow on a flame. Jon hadn’t expected this; hadn’t thought Sansa capable of this. 

The Queen in the North turned to her crowd again, grinning. “And I delight in announcing before you all that the South and the North will be united by marriage. I told them I would marry none, if they did not have the Norths blood running through their veins,” Sansa declared, before those eyes fell onto him – for the third time since she had seen him again. “Jon, of House Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, the Prince that was Promised, and heir to the Iron Throne will become my husband and my King in the North. He bears the blood of my Aunt Lyanna, and I bear the blood of your beloved Warden.” 

Sansa moved from her throne, and beckoned Jon to stand. He wished to remain seated, away from all these eyes, but Sansa denied him such. He wondered what she would do, if he remained seated as he so wished, but he saw the command in her eyes despite her lips never moving. Sansa Stark was as much of a wolf as Ghost was, and Jon wondered how he could have ever thought differently. 

He stood, then, and they came to the same height. “You may not have seen me as your Queen once, for my brother Robb was born to be Lord of Winterfell, but this war that has ravaged our lives has left us with each other. The blood of the North runs through my veins, through my father, and the North is in Jon too. He banished the Others with fire, but he is of Ice too. You all see it – you see the North in him, just as I do.” 

“I wish for your blessings in this marriage,” Sansa asked, looking over her banner men. “I ask for the blessings of the North, as my lands, as my people, as my father’s people. I ask for the blessings of the North, as it’s daughter and as it’s Queen. And soon, when peace is truly here, I shall be the mother of the North, asking for your blessings when we have a son named Eddard. Do I have the blessings of the North? Do I have your blessings?” 

They roared for her, and for him. 

Sansa turned to him, with those eyes of ice, and gave him the widest smile he had ever seen. 

But her eyes were ice, and her hand was cold, and he was not tricked by Queen of Winters deception.

 

* * *

 

“Will you dance with me, my Prince?” 

He looked up, his eyes focusing on the red hair first. _Ygritte,_ he thought, until he remembers that she is gone, like them all. 

“I’m no dancer,” Jon said finally, and he thought of the child who had once been called Sansa, who loved dancing and songs and the tales of tragedy. “You would do better dancing with my brother.” 

“Aegon is not my betrothed,” Sansa murmured, her voice low. 

“And I am not your husband,” Jon said into his cups, “not yet, at least. Not until you rid yourself of your first husband.” 

Sansa pursed her lips, before she sat beside him. “It will be a good arrangement, and in time, my Prince, you shall see.” 

“What shall I see, Sansa? My sister?” Jon snapped, expecting her face to tremble at his anger. “For you have condemned me to an unwanted marriage, to a woman I thought kin.” 

“Unwanted,” Sansa mused, her eyes moving over the crowd feasting. “A word I have heard too many times.” 

Jon glanced to her, before narrowing his eyes. “Why, Sansa? Why did you do this?” 

She was silent for a long while, before she sighs – her hands coming to clasp in front of her. “Do you not wish to dance?” 

“Answer me,” Jon hissed, his hold on his cup tightening. “Tell me why you have done this. Who told you to do this? Who told you to do this?” 

Sansa looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “I see you are too far into your cups, my prince. Lord Tyrion tells me that the declaration of our annulment will be made in the Sennight. After each and every Lord and Lady of Westeros know that I am no longer a Lannister, you will drape your coat of red and black on my shoulders and I shall be your wife. Mayhaps I shall leave you to become used to the idea, for I know I have had many months to prepare.” 

“You’ve had months?” Jon asked, anger burning in his chest. “You’ve known you would demand this of me for months?” 

“I did not demand this of you,” Sansa said, softly. 

“The North would have been burnt if I had not agreed,” Jon snarled, shaking his head as anger took hold of him again. “You would want me to see my home burnt by my own kin? No. No, you forced me.” 

A ghost of a smile rest on Sansa’s lips, and she sighed. “It heartens me to know you still think the North your home, my prince.” 

“You said so yourself,” Jon muttered, so very angry. Angry at her for damning him to this, angry at the past for twisting her so, “I am of the North, just as I am of the South. As much fire, as ice.” 

“Don’t sing songs, Jon,” Sansa whispered, her voice cold, “I no longer care for them.” 

“You care for little, anymore,” Jon murmured, “except your crown, it seems. You don’t even bring Arya and Rickon to see me – don’t even think to-”

Sansa stands, her eyes glaring down at him. “I did what I had to do, Jon Snow. Do not question anything I have done, for I did it all for our family.”

And as she walks away from him, Jon can’t help but feel something other than the anger he so often carried with him. 

Instead, he felt fire burning with him; fire that was so different than the fire he had grown accustomed to since he woke again within Castle Black’s walls, so long ago.

For Sansa Stark had just called him Jon Snow, and he felt _alive._

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Lady with a stone heart, and a Lady of stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Wooooooooo! Comments are appreciated, as always, and whatever else you want to give me!

**SANSA STARK**

 

They were to be married in the Godswood. 

Sansa had insisted.  

“ _We keep the seven,”_ Queen Daenerys had said. “ _It is fitting that the Prince is married in a Sept beneath the eyes of the seven.”_  

“ _But you are not getting married,”_ Sansa had murmured. “ _I keep the Old Gods, the Gods of my father, as does Jon, from my memory. We shall marry in the Godswood.”_

Daenerys had a cocked a brow, but had not argued the issue. 

And so they were to be married in the Godswood in Riverrun. 

It had been a fortnight since the feast, and Sansa had yet to speak to Jon again. Pleasantries, here and there, but the Prince would not spare her a glance and for that she was grateful. When he had accused her of withholding Arya and Rickons presence from him out of spite, Sansa had nearly hit him. 

 _I never wanted to keep them from you,_ she had wanted to scream, _Arya begged me to let you come, but I couldn’t. Dragons fly above, and fire can so easily burn what is left of those I love. How could I risk it, when I promised to keep them safe?_

Sansa’s thoughts returned to her first month as Queen then, when she had been brought before the brotherhood without banners and a cloaked lady, whose throat gaped and whose skin had no blood left to bleed, had addressed her. 

The strangled gurgles of Lady Stoneheart found her mind then.

 _“What is she saying?”_ Sansa had cried, her hands going to her ears. _No, no, no_ , she had thought, _this is not mother, this cannot be my mama._

“ _She wants you to have the crown, m’lady,”_ The man with the Lady had said. “ _It belongs to Sansa Stark, Queen in the North. She wants you to have it.”_  

Sansa could still feel the way the Lady had first looked to her, her fingers trembling and a wail so primal escaping her that Sansa thought she had been killed again. Slaughtered the same way she had been by the Frey's dagger, and yet this time it was at the sight of her daughter. Brienne had brought her before the cloaked leader of the bandits, proud in her accomplishment. Sansa hadn’t understood. She remembered asking Brienne why she was taking her to _bandits,_ when surely they could benefit the most from the price on her head. But it was their leader who wanted to see the girl that was whispered to be the image of Catelyn Tully; their leader who had demanded that Brienne bring her there.  

The Lady had judged her with cruel eyes. Eyes that were hallow, and bloodied, and so mournful that Sansa thought her to be the Stranger itself. But Stranger she was not, for as soon as Sansa removed her hood, and her copper hair saw light, the Lady had screamed. Oh, had she screamed, a screech of agony that tore at Sansa's skin and made her ears bleed. It was not until the Lady had wrapped her in her arms, the stench of rotting flesh filling her nostrils, that Sansa realised that the Lady had once been her mother. 

Her Uncle had been the one to tell her who awaited her within the Godswood. 

She had been meeting with Queen Daenerys when he had come, his reserved face pale as it always was when he saw his nieces ghost.  

“ _My Queen,”_ He had bowed, “ _The Lady wishes for an audience with you.”_

Sansa couldn’t have run faster. 

The Godswood was a place that she sought comfort in, but she knew her Lady Mother had never found it to be a place of faith. That was a long time ago now, when her mother still claimed to be a southern outsider when she walked the walls of Winterfell. Sansa, too, had struggled with the Godswood once. 

Now, it was the only place she felt true comfort.   

Sometimes, if she closes her eyes and thinks of them, she can almost hear their whispers.  _Sansa,_ they would call, and the voice would almost sound like a brother she once had.  _Sansa,_ the tree would sing, and her mind could free itself of the cage it had created.  

Sansa had not seen the Lady for many moons past. _Nearly a year,_ Sansa thought, remembering the last time the Lady had spoken to her.

_“What is she saying?”_

_“She wants you to promise her,”_ He had said, “ _Promise to protect them.”_  

 _“I promise.”_

“Mother,” Sansa said as soon as she saw the cloaked figure on the edge of the Godswood, standing from her prayer. The word felt strange on her lips, and Sansa had to force herself to call the corpse the name of her Lady mother. But she knew if she refused that the Lady would look at her with those tormented Tully eyes, and Sansa couldn’t bear to refuse the Lady the one thing she asked. 

Despite how changed the Lady Stoneheart was, there was still Catelyn Tully. She was hidden beneath rotting flesh, and ugliness, but she still existed. When the Lady would seek her out, she would always stare at Sansa with longing; a longing to hold her, a longing to be with her, a longing to be alive when she was but a corpse. When Sansa had first asked the Lady to accompany her to Winterfell again, so to live as they once had, the Lady Stoneheart refused. 

“ _Why?”_ Sansa had asked, confused. “ _You are my mother. You belong with me. My family belongs with me.”_

 _“She will not return to Winterfell,”_ Harwin had said, translating for the Lady, “ _for what she is does not belong with the living. The Lady cannot bring herself to have you look at her like you do, my Queen, for it torments her so.”_

 _“But I love her,”_ Sansa had cried. “ _She belongs to us. When I get Winterfell back, and when I find Arya, she will need to be with us. She’s our mother.”_

 _“No,”_ Harwin translated, “ _your mother died with your brother, my Queen. Only her corpse remains, and a corpse cannot be carried by those that once loved it - it is too heavy and it is too cruel."_  

Sansa still couldn’t believe that her mother was here, _alive. Not really, though,_ Sansa thought, _she may breathe, but she does not live._

Her mother gurgled, before she beckoned her forward and soon, Sansa was being held to the Lady’s chest, holding onto her cloak tightly. Sansa could imagine then, if she ignored the stench of death and the cold touch, that she was back in Winterfell and her mother was soothing her from a nightmare. 

“ _It was just a dream, sweetling,”_ Her Mama would have said, “ _just a dream, my beautiful winter babe.”_

She gurgles, and Sansa looks up at her. 

Harwin is there, as he always is, _translating._

“She heard of your betrothal,” Harwin says, stone faced. 

Sansa wanted to wilt away then, and escape the gaze of judgement that Harwin had of her. She knew what he thought; his dark onyx eyes told her that within an instant that he thought her sick. She had heard the whispers, and how the name Cersei followed her like a ghost. But Sansa was not the golden lion; Sansa was the red wolf, whose lust lied more with the prospect of safety than with the thought of a brother.

 _And Jon is not my brother,_ Sansa thought, _he never was._  

But this was the only way. Sansa must keep them safe. 

Sansa felt her gut drop, and she loosened her embrace on the Lady. “I had to, mother.” 

Lady Stoneheart’s fingers twinged, and Harwin cleared his throat. “The Lady does not think it wise, my Queen. Only a fool would trust a bastard.” 

“He’s no bastard,” Sansa replied sharply. Sansa could not be what she once was; the silly girl who thought there was substance in songs, and that summer was eternal. Sansa could no longer carry her mother’s hatred, for it was too heavy and it weighed on her so. For all the time she had been called Cat, for all the many who had told her of how Tully she was, Sansa was not her mother, just as Jon wasn’t her father. Sansa was Sansa; not a ghost, or a reincarnation, or anything that someone else might make of her. And Sansa Stark couldn’t hate Jon Snow – not when she had so little left to love. “Not anymore.” 

“A bastard once,” Harwin translated, “and a bastard always.” 

Sansa glared at her mother then, feeling her heart wrench as she thought of what was left of Catelyn Tully. Sansa remembered the thought that had consumed her when she had first met Lady Stoneheart; the thought that repulsed her so. _I must kill it,_ she had thought, this mutilation of her mother so monstrous that she’d rather it be dead than to still walk the land. 

Sansa had never wanted Lady Stoneheart; Sansa wanted her mother. 

 _But I will never have mother again,_ Sansa thought, _my mother is dead, just as father is, and Robb, and Bran, and Lady, and Cersei, and Jon Snow, and Sansa Stark. They are all dead, and how I wished I could be join them.  Just as Jon Snow had died, and was reborn in the flames, Sansa Stark perished in the mountains, and was reborn in the ice._

Sansa could still remember how her fingers had blackened in the snow, and the black dye of her hair had dripped into the earth as the rain had fallen, bringing back the fire to her roots. When the rain had come, it had washed away Alayne Stone and left what was left of Sansa Stark in her wake. 

“I’m doing what is right,” Sansa finally said, her heart in her throat and her nails digging into her bare arms. Sansa cared not for pain, for anything that distracted her from the living corpse that stood before her was welcome. Yet even sharp nails in soft skin could not disguise the rotting carcass that stood before her.  

“What is right does not belong with a bastard-“ 

“He is _not_ a bastard!” Sansa snarled, turning on Lady Stoneheart with wild eyes. “And if he was, would it be so bad? Would it be so bad to have a bastard warm my bed when he is honourable and good? Would it be so bad to have a bastard who would keep me safe, then a man infatuated with _your_ ghost? Would it be so bad, _mother_ , if I was loved by a bastard rather than raped by a Lord? I would marry a thousand bastards if it meant I would be safe from men like Petyr Baelish.” 

Lady Stoneheart’s gurgles turned into low, rasping moans, and Sansa felt her chest tighten. She knew these sounds – they were oddly familiar to the sounds Sansa had first heard come from her. Like a dying animal, the Lady Stoneheart sighed with sorrow before she touched Sansa gently. 

Sansa looked up, her eyes dry of any tears, as Lady Stoneheart removed her hood and allowed her daughter to see those eyes of hers. Those Tully blue eyes, so haunted and hooded, that Sansa wondered if she would ever gaze into her mother’s eyes again without having to gaze at death itself. 

How Sansa wished, then, that death would not taunt her so. It was a cruel joke to give a grieving daughter her mother back, only to strip her of all that once good and beautiful about her. Everything that Sansa had once adored about her Lady Mother had been tainted, replaced by an unholy hatred that even the love Sansa bore her could not forgive. _How cruel death is to laugh at me when he has stolen so much from me,_ Sansa thought, before she braved another look at the Lady’s face. 

Lady Stoneheart’s corpse looked as destroyed as she was. What was once beauty was now death, and the little emotion that the Lady could carry on her withered skin was always so sorrowful that Sansa could not bear the sight of it. Sansa wished for smiles, and warmth, and instead she was given a corpse of grief. The Lady’s face was etched in pain, a sorrow so profound that Sansa could feel it crawling over her skin and invading her mind. _Help me,_ it whispered, the sorrow begging to be taken from the Lady, and Sansa’s mind returned to her first thought then. Mayhaps she should put the Lady put of her misery, and allow her to join her husband. 

Catelyn Tully, who was beautiful and good, did not deserve to be ugly and hateful. Catelyn Tully, whose warmth was the sun and whose smile was summer, did not deserve to be a prisoner of winter. Catelyn Tully did not deserve to be robbed of her death, and to be given a life so little lived in that death was her shadow and hatred her weapon. _But I’m too selfish,_ Sansa thought as she gazed at the Lady, knowing that while she was a murderer, she could not rob herself of more family. Her mother may be a raised corpse with flesh that rot, but she was still her mother, no matter how changed, just as the wildling who was Rickon was her brother, just as the faceless girl that was Arya was her sister, and just as the dragon Prince was a boy she once knew.  

The Lady raised her withered hand to the gaping wound at her neck, and pressed her rotted fingers into it, her mouth opening slightly. “Safe,” Lady Stoneheart croaked, her eyes tormented as she repeated the mangled gurgle. “Safe.”

Sansa’s eyes swam with tears at hearing her Lady mothers voice, and she dropped her head, falling to her knees before her mother as she grasped at her skirts. She felt as small as a child then, begging her mother for something as silly as lemon cakes or a new gown or maybe even a betrothal to a southern prince. But Sansa was no child – she could not be fooled into thinking that summer was forever, and that love meant safety. 

“I am keeping them safe, Mama, I promise,” Sansa whispers, clutching at the rough material of her mother skirts. 

“Safe,” Lady Stoneheart said once more, before she raised her daughters chin. “ _Safe_.” 

“I must do this,” Sansa whispered, her trembling fingers coming to her mouth. “To keep us safe from them all, I must do this. I must marry Jon.” 

Lady Stoneheart gurgled once more, and as Sansa looked at her, Harwin spoke, “Then you must do as you intend, if you think it right. You must all be safe.” 

Sansa gazed at the ghost of her mother, her lips opening and closing in disbelief. Her mother had blessed the union, even if it wasn’t a true blessing. But Sansa clung to it, with desperate hands and desperate ears, just as she had once desperately clung to life. And as Sansa felt her mother’s grip on her hands loosen, she knew this was where they would bid farewell. 

Before she left her, Lady Stoneheart pressed her hand to her daughter’s heart and then mirrored the action, her withered hand coming to her own heart. _I love you,_ Lady Stoneheart seemed to say, with no words at all.

“I love you too, Mother.”

And then, so small and so hidden, Sansa swore she saw Lady Stoneheart’s lips upturn in a smile.

 

* * *

 

“My Queen.” 

Tyrion Lannister was the same as he had been on that dreaded day in the Great Sept of bailor. Sansa had thought of it often in the years past, when she so often thought of the fear she carried with her when she walked the halls of the Great Keep. She was a little bird then, and not the wolf they called her now; plagued with wounds from white Knights swords and battered at the command of the gallant golden King. But the fear she had felt upon being told she was marrying the imp wasn’t as most would think. Yes, there was fear, but Sansa had never thought the imp would kill her. 

He may have looked at her with a perverse gaze, a longing that had never been satiated, but Sansa knew the look of madness and Tyrion Lannister didn’t have it. Of all his family, _save for Jamie, maybe,_ Sansa thought, Tyrion had a shred of a goodness within him. A simple shred, but it was more than Cersei or Joffrey or Twin had ever possessed, and that made him different than his pride. 

Sansa had once credited their Lady mother with it, but so often it had been said that Cersei was the spitting image of Joanna Lannister and the thought of anyone with Cersei Lannister’s looks being good revolted Sansa so that she tried not to think of the fallen lioness of the rock. 

He came to her the day before her wedding, and her first husband looked as he always did. _Ten cups in._  

“Tyrion,” Sansa murmured, her eyes narrowing as she glanced at the small statured man as he walked into her solar. She looked to where Jeyne sat, finishing the embroidery on her maiden coat. “Jeyne, would you excuse us?” 

Jeyne stood, her eyes nervously casting themselves on the man in the room before she fled. Truth be told, Sansa did not care for a private audience with Tyrion Lannister but Jeyne was still not accustomed to the presence of strange men, and still flinched at the sound of Arya’s name being spoken.

“Is that the false Stark?”

Sansa pursed her lips, her eyes moving back to the papers before her. “Her name is Jeyne Pool, and she is no Stark, no matter how much your family would have had the Boltons believe.”   

“Ah, yes, I heard about the girl that had to deal with Ramsay Bolton,” Tyrion said, pulling up a seat at the table. “Not many would survive that bastard.” 

“I don’t think she did,” Sansa replied, her eyes still on the coat. She was embroidering the wolf, her eyes focused on its eyes. She had so wanted to recall the stature of Lady, but it was so hard to recall Lady if she wasn’t dreaming. In her dreams, Sansa was with Lady still – running through the wilds without the prison of her past following her. In her dreams, Sansa was a bird that flew. In her dreams, Sansa ran with Nymeria and Shaggydog. In her dreams, Sansa was free. “Jeyne Pool died the moment Ramsay Bolton draped his flayed cloak over her shoulders. Lucky ‘twas only fabric, rather than the skin of his victims.” 

“That is a very sad way to look at the world, little wife,” Tyrion murmured, “to think all those that have suffered to have died is not right. Sansa Stark still lives. Jon Snow still lives. I still live.” 

Sansa sighed, before her Tully eyes found his mismatched ones. “But I am not the Sansa Stark I was when I left Winterfell, nor am I the same Sansa Stark that you knew, my lord. I am not the Sansa Stark that lived in the Vale, either.” 

“But she called herself Alayne, no?” Lord Tyrion asked. “Sansa Stark never lived in the Vale.” 

Sansa flushed at the sound of her old alias. “Aye, but Alayne is dead as well.” 

“With her father, then,” Tyrion said casually, and Sansa felt her hand still, her heart hammer, and her throat tighten. 

Petyr. 

_Father._

_My father is Eddard Stark,_ Sansa told herself again, _and he is dead_. _Like Robb. Like mother. I am Sansa Stark, of House Stark. I am of ice, not stone. I am free now._

Not many spoke the name of the man she had murdered. Maybe they thought her too weak to speak it, but she had heard her their whispers; had heard what they said about the Queen that wore blood like she wore her crown.

Sansa nodded, hoping that Tyrion wasn’t as observant as he once been. “I suppose.” 

“I always wondered what occurred to our poor old Littlefinger,” Tyrion mused, “although I suppose if the stories are right, they would have told a tale of how Alayne Stone disappeared into the mountains, leaving her father naked and his head cut from his body, only to be returned as Sansa Stark.” 

Sansa stood at the sound of Tyrion’s words, her cheeks flushed as her mind conjured images that belonged only in the terror of night now. Images of that night, and how she had cried, holding the the bloodied bundle in her arms, how he had leered over her and had wished to take her again. Images of a bloodied knife, her own blood mixed with his, and how she had hacked at his neck, again, and again, and again. She remembered wondering how her father’s head had come off so cleanly, when _his_ head took so long to take. 

“If you seek to distress me, my lord, I would ask you to leave my chambers and never return.” 

“That sounds awfully familiar,” Tyrion mused, before he motioned to the chair. “Please, sit down, little wife. I only mean to ask you of your champion.” 

Sansa’s stomach churned at the thought of the trial in the Vale, and how they had called for her head. The fear she had felt still stirred within her when she thought of those dreaded days, when the Lords of the Vale had demanded her head and she was helpless to stop it. _I am to die,_ Sansa had recalled thinking, _finally._

 _“_ Brienne of Tarth,” Sansa said, glaring at the dwarf. “She was my sworn shield.” 

“Not anymore?” Tyrion asked, taking a sip of his wine. 

“No,” Sansa said, shaking her head, “not anymore.” 

“Odd,” Tyrion said, “for if I remember that woman, if you could really call her that, she had the oddest obsession with your mother.”

Sansa bared her teeth in a sneer. “Brienne of Tarth is just as much a woman as you are a man, Lord Tyrion. I won’t have you slander her name in my presence.” 

Tyrion chuckled. “Please, please, my Winter Queen, I was only jesting.” 

“That’s _all_ you do,” Sansa snapped. “If you truly had any talents of the tongue, you would know when to jest and when to shut up.” 

Tyrion grinned broadly. “I have many talents of the tongue, my Queen – if we were still married, I would be more than happy to prove them to you.” 

Sansa glowered at him. “Maybe I should ask your dragon Queen to remove it then, for she would do better than to have a hand that burned alliances just as quickly as she struck them.” 

“You speak of Queen Daenerys as if King Aegon is not her equal,” Tyrion mused. “Even when we were negotiating, you seemed to her address her more.”

Sansa shrugged. “It is her, the mother of dragons, that should be feared. Aye, her husband is her equal, but her husband did not birth three dragons, lord Tyrion. I may be a Queen, but I am no fool; a woman with dragons in her control is a woman that should be feared.”

“She is actually quite nice, if you would speak to her without the crown blinding you,” Tyrion said. 

Sansa cocked a brow. “As nice as your sister?” 

“My sister was as nice as the Others,” Tyrion sneered. “Not all Southern Queens are like her, your grace.” 

Sansa remained silent, before she sighed. “Why are you here, Lord Tyrion? I doubt it was a visit of pleasure.” 

“Every visit with you, my dear, has been a visit of pleasure,” Tyrion grinned. 

“You like children in your bed, Lord Tyrion?” Sansa snarled. “You like girls of ten and three to be frightened, and scarred before you? Please, save me from your vile comments or I will add another scar to that face of yours.” 

Tyrion’s grasp on his cup tightened. “I never forced you, my lady. I never wanted you.”

 _Liar,_ Sansa thought, _I see the way you look at me. I know that look well. I know what men who wear that look want, and it is no conversation._

“What do you want?” Sansa finally demanded. “I am done with listening to your jests. Tell me, now, before I get a guard to escort you from my solar.” 

“My brother,” Tyrion finally said, his façade of cockiness melting away as his lips formed the words. “They say he was captured by Northern Forces in the Battle at Winterfell.”

Sansa pursed her lips, thinking back to when they had brought before her the great golden knight. _Kingslayer,_ they whispered as he was brought before the Queen in the North, like he had been so long ago with her brother. He had submitted to her, and had pledged his allegiance, on his honour as a Lannister.

Sansa cared for no one’s honour, for honour had left her father dead and her family broken. 

“He is dead,” Sansa finally said, and Tyrion let out a gasp of tormented sorrow. Sansa spared a glance to him as his face folded in with grief, and his small hands clenched into fists. For a moment, Sansa wanted to say nothing else. Sansa wanted him to suffer, just as she had when Tyrion had told her the news of her mother and brother so long ago. But she cannot lie to him. “Just as Sansa Stark is, and just as Jon Snow is. The last letter I received from Brienne told me that her new husband, and her are enjoying Essos greatly, and are expecting a babe within two moons.”

Tyrion let out a sob of relief, and Sansa turned from him, no longer wanting to see it. “To my Lords, and to me, Jamie Lannister is dead – put to the sword by my own hand with my Uncle as witness. I trust you to keep the news of Lady Brienne’s husband quiet?” 

“Thank you,” Tyrion whispered, quiet. 

“I didn’t do it for you,” Sansa snapped. 

“No? Who did you do it for then?” 

Sansa thought of tall statured woman then, that had saved her so long ago. _Brienne._

“No one,” Sansa said finally. “I did it for no one.”

 

* * *

 

“Ghost?” 

Sansa laughed as a wet nose came to her bent face, and she ran her hands through the white fur of Jon’s wolf. Nymeria lounged before her, her head coming up as she noticed her brother’s presence. 

Sansa sighed as she looked to the wolf, wondering what Lady would look like if she had ever survived the road to Kings Landing. She had never seen much of Ghost when he was but a pup, unless Lady had decided to play with the runt. And then they had all left, so quick that Sansa hadn’t thought much of her brothers direwolf since. 

Sansa cocked her head to the side as she ran a hand through Ghosts fur again, and stared into his scarlet eyes. “What say you, ghost? Do you think me awful for what I have done?” 

Ghost blinked at her, but there was understanding in his eyes. The wolves knew their family, and they knew when to listen.

“I know he doesn’t want me,” Sansa whispered, “but he’ll keep us safe, Ghost. He’ll keep Arya and Rickon _safe_. I know it was selfish of me to take him, to demand him as a Queen, but I need him to protect my home. To protect me.” 

Ghost grumbled out a noise, before he nuzzled into her side. 

“You understand, don’t you, Ghost?” Sansa murmured, pressing a kiss into his fur. “You know how I feel – you’ve let me in, before.” 

Those red eyes of his gazed at her, as if to tell her _I know._ She had seen the walls of the Red Keep through Ghost – had seen the Iron throne, and the Kingswood, through Ghost. She had seen Jon, peaceful and tired, lost to a world of sleep, through Ghost. All because Ghost had allowed her to. 

“Ghost!?!”

Sansa stood at the sound of his master’s voice. Nymeria bounded up, her eyes alert, but as soon as she saw the man, she settled once more. Arya’s wolf would always feel safe in the presence of Jon Snow. 

He came through the parted trees, and once again Sansa was struck by how much he looked like her father’s ghost. So ignorant she could be, if she closed her eyes and pretended that they were back in Winterfell and she was but ten and one again. So ignorant she could be, if she thought Jon her father when her father rots in the crypts below Winterfell. 

Jon halted at the sight of her, her hand on the heart tree where they were to be married in the morn. She wondered what she might have looked like, if were to stop so suddenly, or if he truly despised her so that even the mere sight of her made him want to turn away from his path.

“Prince Jon,” Sansa murmured, before she turned back to Ghost. “It appears your wolf has forsaken you for me.”

The words were meant to be a jape, but there was no laughter from the Prince. _Of course there isn’t,_ Sansa thought wryly, _Jon is as solemn as the heart tree itself. He is truly my father’s son._

Sansa sighed, before glancing over her shoulder at him. “Do I truly repulse you so that even you can’t hear a jest when it’s made?” 

“You don’t repulse me,” Jon murmured, a little too quickly. 

Sansa cocked a brow, before she nodded. “If you say so, my prince.” 

“Stop,” Jon said, shaking his head. “Stop calling me that.” 

“What?” Sansa asked. “My Prince? Is that not your title now?” 

“You called me Jon Snow,” He whispered. “The last time we spoke, you called me Jon _Snow._ ” 

“A mistake,” Sansa murmured, bowing her head in apology. “I apologise if it reminded you of unpleasant times.” 

“It’s my name,” Jon murmured. “Aye, being a bastard was unpleasant, but so is being a Prince. Jon Snow is just as much my name as Targaryen.” 

Sansa looked up at him then, surprised. He had been angry at her these past few weeks, Sansa had known that. When she had spared him glances, he had always been glowering, whether it be at his cups, or at Ghost, or at his poor brother who seemed to bear the brute of Jon’s anger. It reminded her somewhat of when he was at Winterfell, constantly glaring at the walls for the misdeeds the world had placed on him and deemed his. 

 _He looks at me like he wants me to disappear,_ Sansa thought as she met his gaze, wondering if it would be easier for him if she announced that she would return to Winterfell without him. She had thought that after the wedding that they would return together, but mayhaps she should allow him to return to the South with his Aunt and brother. _Maybe he likes it there,_ Sansa thought, _or maybe he has a girl there that warms his bed._

It didn’t matter though, not to Sansa. Jon may be handsome, and the Prince that she so often she sung of when she had once idolised the songs of past, but Sansa cared little for Princes of songs anymore. All she wanted was the safety that their union would bring – safety for Arya and Rickon at having a King who did not wish to usurp their rights, or their home. 

When she had been Alayne Stone, Sansa had thought of Jon often. _How good would it be to see him once again,_ she had once thought as she had played with her dark hair. But now, as he stood before her, dark bearded and grey eyed, Sansa wondered if this plan of hers was too cruel. Was she treating him like she once did, with little regard to his feelings? _Yes,_ Sansa thought, _maybe you haven’t changed that much, Sansa._

“I’m glad being a Prince isn’t pleasant for you,” Sansa murmured, “for if it was, I would have need to worry. Those who wear a crown should always be uncomfortable.” 

“I never wanted it,” Jon supplied then, “any of it. I would have preferred to continue as Lord Commander, if they had not betrayed me.” 

Sansa glanced at him, before she nodded. “I heard they killed you, and a red witch brought you back in the flames.” 

Jon nodded. “Yes.” 

“The Gods were obviously not done with you,” Sansa murmured, before she met his eyes, “and for that I am glad.” 

Jon didn’t say anything for a long while, and they stood in a comfortable silence. Sansa felt no need to fill it, for her hand was on the heart tree and she was in the Godswood with her wolves. 

“Why did you ask me to marry you, Sansa?” Jon asked finally, his grey eyes glaring into her. “Why marry a bastard you despise?” 

“I don’t despise you,” Sansa said, wrinkling her nose. “I never have.” 

To think that Jon thought himself hated by her was a painful one. But could she blame him, when she sneered bastard when he offered kindness? Could she blame him, when she had refused his hand and whispered base born? Could she blame him, when she had not ever defended him to her mother who spoke of him like he was vermin, rather than a motherless boy.   

They called Sansa sweet then; _sweet, lovely Sansa, as beautiful as a summer day,_ her father had once said. But when Sansa thinks of who she once was, and how she had treated the boy of Snow, Sansa could never think to call herself sweet. For a person who sentences a child for the mistakes of his parents had no heart of sweetness.

“You were cruel,” Jon whispered, as if he it was some sort of secret. Sansa wondered if Jon thought she would be hurt by his words, for his eyes seemed to be appraising nervously, as if he expected her damnation for him having the nerve to tell the truth. “Just as your mother taught you to be.”

Sansa’s throat tightened at the mention of her mother, but she nodded anyway. “Aye, my Lady mother was cruel, as way I. But I was a girl blinded by songs, and you were a boy who fit in none of them.” 

“And now I am?” 

Sansa chuckled, shaking her head as she turned to face him. “Now, you are a grown man, a Prince, whose kin wished to burn my lands and pillage my home, who threatened all I have worked for. I asked for you because I knew that a Union would be smart. It’s something to unite the North and the South without death, and gods, believe me, I wish for no death. I am done with death, Jon - I have breathed it since I was but a girl, and I can bear it no longer. I asked for you, because I needed to keep the North free … and I knew you would keep us safe.” 

“Us?” Jon asked, incredulous.

“Arya, and Rickon,” Sansa murmured, gazing into those orbs of silver.

“And you,” Jon said, motioning to her. “You won’t’ argue that you benefit greatly from it?” 

“Aye, I will,” Sansa said with a nod, her words confounding Jon it seemed. “Our marriage will send all the suitors who ask for my hand away. All the usurpers of my rights will leave, for I will no longer be a cow for sale. Our marriage guarantees that I will never have to leave Winterfell – will never have to endure another man forced onto me. I may not know you anymore, Jon, but I know you to be good.” 

“I always wanted to protect my family,” Jon murmured, his grey eyes meeting hers. “You didn’t have to demand that I marry you for my protection, Sansa.” 

“But what would happen when your brother, and Aunt come for the throne I took from them?” Sansa asked, her voice but a whisper. “Would they care if the North was your home when I refused them? Would they care for your words, when I had stolen what they thought to be theirs? You may be their kin, Jon, but they are ruthless dragons who think Starks to be rebels, and when they would come for us, with their fire and their anger, would you be able to stop them?”

Jon couldn’t reply, for he knew that there was truth in Sansa’s words, no matter how painful they were. 

“After you won the war, I heard tales of this magnificent Prince who was Promised – the vanquisher of the Others, the resurrected, the true heir to the iron throne, who was to live in the South, and who called himself Snow,” Sansa breathed, a smile overcoming her. “When my Uncle told me it was you, I didn’t know what to believe. Jon Snow, my bastard brother, a Prince? Jon Snow, a man who belonged to the North, to rule in the South? Jon Snow, a wolf, now a dragon?” 

Sansa stopped, shaking her head. “I don’t know what I thought then, but I will not deny that asking you to be my husband was for my own selfishness. I promised that I would keep my family safe, and I had to sacrifice your future. But I am giving you a great many things, even if you may not want them now.” 

“Like what?” Jon asked, bitterly. “Like a place next to you on a throne?” 

“Like Winterfell,” Sansa whispered, her eyes falling to his feet as she thought of her reasoning’s for the marriage. She had rehearsed it so many times, what she would say to convince the dragon Prince that marrying a spoiled woman who he once thought a sister was something a good idea. “Like the North. Like our family. Like Arya, and Rickon, and maybe even Bran. Like freedom from the South, if you so wish it.”

“I am not being given any freedom, here,” Jon snapped. “My freedom was robbed from me the moment you asked me to take you as a wife.” 

“Aye,” Sansa replied, roughly. “But mayhaps living in a gilded cage in the Red Keep was not truly free. Believe me, Jon, I know what it is like to live in that prison and no one of the North would think it freedom.” 

Jon didn’t respond, and as he contemplated her words, Sansa sighed. Gathering her skirts in her hands, Sansa beckoned for Nymeria to come as she walked past Jon. Impulse drove him, and Sansa soon found a hand wrapped tightly around her elbow, holding her back from leaving. 

His grey eyes gazed into her own, and she felt herself softening at his touch. Sansa moved closer to him, and cradled his cheek, shaking her head. “You may think this marriage a prison, and you may hate me, but we are your family. Arya, Rickon and … me, we’re your family. You belong with _us_ , in the North. And in time, you’ll know why I did this.” 

And with that, she left.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a wedding, and a bedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So nearly 200 Kudos and nearly 3,000 hits? What? I've never posted on an archive of our own, but I'm gonna assume that's good. Well, at least I'm happy with it, haha. Enjoy! Feedback is always appreciated!

**JON**

He had always wanted to marry in a Godswood.

When Daenerys had begun talks with the Queen in North about how they were to be married, Jon thought he would have to stand in a Sept that he hated and drape the cloak of black and red over her shoulders. He thought that the Queen in the North would demand a Tourney to go along with it – a Tourney from those songs she so loved and had so often dreamt about when she was a girl. 

He had thought of crowns, and of Queens of love and beauty, of fables, and of tragedy; for the girl he had once known had confused tales of sorrow with tales of romance, and disguised tragedy as love. 

But when his Aunt had broached the subject, Sansa had insisted they be married in front of both the North and the South at Riverrun, within the month. And when she had refused the Sept, only asking for them to be married beneath the Old Gods in front of Heart Tree, Jon couldn’t contain the way his heart had clenched so tightly he thought it wrong.

He couldn’t determine what he felt for Sansa in that moment, for there was so much that he felt for Sansa Stark. So much hatred, so much confusion, and so much longing. She was right when she said that they were family; she was right to remind him of Winterfell, a place he had not known for years. He had longed for it, just as he had longed for the comfort of his family again.

He didn’t know what he had imagined when he thought of who he was to marry, for really, he had never given it much thought. Of course, when he was younger, there was many a time when Jon had imagined that Robb was the bastard and he the trueborn son of Eddard and the Lady of Winterfell. 

It had been so easy then to imagine the lovely maid that would walk through the Godswood to meet him, so fair and beautiful that even as a child Jon was sure he would have lost his breath at the very sight of her. Draped in her maiden cloak, and as beautiful as the moon, she would have smiled at him, would have accepted him, as the heir to Winterfell. 

But Jon had of course imagined the way it would feel to drape a cloak of grey over her shoulders, with the proud eyes of his father and the Lady of Winterfell watching on. When he imagined it then, he even thought of a tinge of red to his hair, to make him really like his siblings.

But that was a fantasy that he would never have; he wasn’t the trueborn son of Eddard and Catelyn Stark. And so the thought of wedding a fair maiden with a beauty so profound it was painful to behold was lost to the young boy, and the thoughts of taking the Black replaced it – a cloak of black replacing a cloak of grey so easily.

It was funny, really, that so much had changed in his life and yet he was still so young. And it was funnier, indeed, that the cloak of grey he so wished for was indeed replaced by a cloak of Grey – but rather it was a Targaryen cloak than a cloak of the Nights Watch.

“Nervous?” Aegon asked him, nudging his brother as they waited for the Queen in the North to arrive. 

Jon sent Aegon a glare, but even the King could not ignore the way his brother’s hands trembled underneath the leather or his gloves or how he fidgeted as soon as he stood before the Heart Tree in Riverrun’s Godswood.

Ghost stood by his side, his red eyes alert and watching the entrance of the trees. It seemed that Ghost had taken to Sansa, for whenever Sansa was near, his wolf would disappear and stay by her side. It was how he found the wolf in the godswood yesterday – his bride by his wolfs side, and a blinding smile on her face.

She had had her hands deep in his fur when he had heard her whispers, the rationalisations of a union that to him had seemed irrational flowing from her lips like a water through a river. But as soon as he had heard her whispers, her soft voice cracking as she plead with Ghost, he had halted.

“ _I know he doesn’t want me_ ,” Sansa had whispered, “ _but he’ll keep us safe, Ghost. He’ll keep Arya and Rickon safe. I know it was selfish of me to take him, to demand him as a Queen, but I need him to protect my home. To protect me.”_  

When she had demanded him as a husband, he had hated her. He had hated her for once again deeming him too lowly to even ask him to consent to the union, rather than demand it of him. He had hated her for being so like the girl he had once known, and yet so changed. He had hated her for wearing the crown of his brother, and treating the North so good. He had hated, every ounce of it, for he knew he couldn’t hate her at all.

And she was so beautiful it hurt him. She was so beautiful that when the thoughts of her had entered his mind late at night, the thought of touching her entering his perverse mind, his body responded in the same way it had with Ygritte. He _hated_ it. He hated himself for wanting her – for wanting the bride they had demanded he married – for wanting a girl he once thought a sister.

He _wanted_ to hate her. He wanted to hate what she had said the night prior in the Godswood. He wanted to think her selfish, but when she had spoken of keeping Arya and Rickon free from a suitor that would corrupt their rights, he couldn’t think her anything but _good._ And as she had spoken her reasoning to the Union, Jon had found them to be rational. The very thing he had thought crazed about her proposition was not so much as crazed as he had once thought it to be, and now, he didn’t know what to think.

He hated that within one conversation, his convictions to hating her had wilted away. He hated that the way she whispered _my prince_ somehow made him feel valued, as he had so wished to feel when he had been a Snow at Winterfell. He hated how her approval of him now meant something, when he had worked so hard to not care for her disapproval of him then. 

Jon kept his eyes on the Heart Tree as he heard the whispers of the crowd begin to simper, and he heard the gasps. _Don’t look,_ Jon thought to himself, not wanting to gaze upon her beauty when he knew it would only hurt him more.

But then he never could ignore beauty. 

Jon glanced over his shoulder, and the sight before him hurt more than their daggers did. 

She was an ocean, and he was drowning in it. She was a storm, and he its victim. She was a quake of earth, and he the stones that crumbled at her touch. But most of all, she was the first fall of snow – the promise of winter, while Autumn still lingered. Beautiful, she was, but Jon thought it a small word to explain the sight of her. _Painful,_ Jon thought, was a better word to describe what she looked like to him.

Her eyes met his, and he realised then that no one escorted her. _She has no one to,_ Jon thought to himself, and it was then that he realised how young she looked. Only eight, and ten, and yet she had no family left but two siblings that were far from here and with a crown on her head that she had never wanted.

Eight and ten, and she had suffered. Eight and ten, and she was a Queen. Eight and ten, and she was to be his wife. So young, so very young, and yet she her eyes held a wisdom that was beyond her age. 

Jon stepped forward, in her direction, wanting to slip his arm though hers and steady her, before he saw the Blackfish do so. _Thank you,_ he wanted to tell the older man, but his mouth would not work; words would not come from his tongue and he wondered why. Did the sight of her truly render him so useless?

Sansa walked on the arm of the Blackfish, in a gown of white, and with her copper locks falling down her back. No southern style was to be found, for the Queen wore only the North. Her cloak of grey dragged through the grass, and Jon watched as her fur trimmed cloak swished at her feet, like water.

They continued to walk until they stood before him, and Aegon cleared his throat. 

“Who comes before the Old Gods this night?” 

The Blackfish didn’t smile. No one did. Truly, it would be more suited to be a burial, for how grim the faces the guests wore. He wondered if maybe it was a funeral, for the moment he wedded Sansa Stark, he too would die.

Sansa nodded to her Blackfish, almost granting him her approval to speak. “Sansa, of House Stark, comes here to be wed. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessing of the Gods. Who comes to claim her?"

Jon stepped forward, his eyes belonging to Sansa. He does not look to the ground, as he so desperately wants to; no, he stares at her. _I deserve that much,_ Jon thinks, _if she is to ask this of me, and I am to protect her, then I will not be afraid to stare at her._

“Jon, of House Targaryen, Heir to the Iron Throne. Who gives her?”

Jon expected the Blackfish to say his own name, but he didn’t. “The North and the Riverlands do,” Sansa looked to her Uncle, and gave him a small smile, but he was not finished, “as do Arya, and Rickon Stark, her sister, and brother, heirs to the North and the Riverlands." 

Sansa smiled brightly then, and for a moment, a simple moment, Jon felt like he wasn’t drowning any longer. For a moment, Jon felt he could breathe. At the sight of her smile, the storm that she had brought halted and the sun began to peak through the clouds that ravaged the sky.

When she smiled like that, Jon thought she very much looked like the girl she had once been. But it does not pain him to see her as the snobbish girl she had once been; for that girl had given smiles freely. The Queen in the North was colder, and more sombre; to see her smile as to see the sun on a winters day, and Jon could not hate her then. Not when she smiled, and the smile that she wore so resembled Eddard Stark. It’s then, as she smiles at her Uncle, that Jon realises he can never hate her.  

“Queen Sansa,” Aegon said, “will you take this man?”

“I take this man,” Sansa said, nodding. Her eyes of ice grabbed then, and for a moment she wasn’t the Queen in the North, she was Sansa.

Jon stepped forward, and unclasped the cloak that Sansa wore from her neck. Her neck was long, and slender, and his hand brushed against the soft skin of her neck as he pulled the coat from her. The grey pelted cloak was heavy in his hands, and as Jon gazed at it, he was struck by it. It was oddly familiar, and for a moment, Jon couldn’t place where he had seen the grey cloak before until he realised. The pelts had been his fathers. _My Uncles,_ he corrected himself, for to call Eddard Stark his father on the day he wedded his daughter was so perverse that it consumed Jon with guilt once more.   

Sansa looked just as beautiful in black and red, _but she would always suit grey more_ , Jon thought.

Jon stood beside Sansa then, confused as to how it was so fast, but it was done and they were wedded: husband and wife until their last breath. Their lips did not meet, and neither did their skin but they were now bonded before the old gods. 

Jon thought then, that this wedding was much different to the one he had imagined as a boy named Snow. 

Sansa sat beside him at the feast, quiet but not unhappy. There was no frown on her lips, but she didn’t smile either. He didn’t think that she was displeased, for her face was not as cold as it had been those first few days she had been at Riverrun. They ate ten courses, which was what Daenerys called ‘modest’. Jon thought of his life at the Wall, and beyond it; of how he ate what little they had and was happy with it. When his Aunt had tried to suggest a more lavish affair, Sansa had refused. 

“ _Anything else would be a waste, and there are people starving,”_ Sansa had said, “ _I shall not feast while my people starve.”_

Their guests came before them, as King and Queen in the North, to offer their blessings and present their gifts. His Aunt, and brother gifted them a cradle of black iron, to his dismay, which Sansa looked at with thin lips and a false smile. The others followed suit, and the couple received a bountiful array of gifts; the Tyrells gifted them bountiful harvests, the Lannister’s gifted them their weight in gold that would aid Winterfell’s coffers, but it was Sansa’s Uncle whose gift made her smile. 

“My Queen,” He said, raising his cup to her, “you are the image of your mother, my beloved niece, but you are your father’s daughter, there is no doubt to that. I have known you since you were but a babe, and now I know you as a Queen. I wish to give you something that was left to me, and made for you, my Queen, as well as a bountiful gift to your coffers and some fine weaponry for Winterfell’s guard.” 

Jon watched as the Blackfish placed a box in front of Sansa, and Sansa’s slender hands opened it. Jon had not expected the sound that came from the Queen in the Norths mouth; the strangled cry of sorrow that left her and drew the eyes of everyone in the room. Even his brother and Aunt were gazing at her, concerned. 

Sansa was up, and out of her seat then, almost bounding down the dais before her Uncle. She did not throw herself into his arms, as Jon had expected from the excitable movements; it seemed that she remembered the crown she wore, and so she could not be the Sansa she so wished. She had to be the Queen – the beloved Warden of the North that was feared by many.

And yet Sansa offered the Blackfish more affection than Jon had seen her bestow in this past fortnight. She kissed both of his cheeks, and whispered something to him.  They spoke quietly, not loud enough for anyone to hear, but whatever the Blackfish said had Sansa amazed. Jon watched as Sansa realised her audience, and turned back to her husband – her eyes meeting his.

“My Uncle has gifted us something very special, my King,” Sansa murmured, her eyes moving to the box as she raised the wooden circle from its packaging. “It is a prayer wheel, made by my mother, Catelyn Stark, for the safe return of myself and my sister, the Princess Arya. Only a mother can make such a thing.” 

“Thank you, Lord Tully,” Jon acknowledged, giving him a nod of appreciation. “It is a very thoughtful gift.” 

The Black fish almost glares at him, and Jon is reminded of Lady Stark when he is looked at like that. But he doesn’t want to think of Lady Stark now, for she is dead.

Sansa turned back to him, a peculiar look in her eyes as she gazed at him. It seemed to disappear after a moment, and she was back at his side.

“My King,” Sansa murmured, touching his hand briefly. “I have a gift for you.” 

Jon turned to her, uncomfortable at the title. He wanted her to say Jon, but the most unchanged thing about her was her courtesy. “Sansa?”

“Yes?” Sansa asked, turning to him with wide eyes.

Jon faltered when she looked at him like that, as if she expected so much from him. Did she expect him to be a King, when he was only a bastard? Did she expect him to be a friend, when he had always a stranger? 

Jon shrugged, his words forgotten. “Never mind, my Queen.”

Sansa’s expression faltered, before she motioned to the guards at the end of the Great Hall. Jon watched as the doors opened, before he felt a small hand grasp his and pull him up. His hand froze at the touch of ice, his skin searing only for it to be left cold when she let go of his hand.,

Jon watched as Sansa smiled widely at a man with dark hair, and eyes of a storm. Jon thought him familiar, but he thought less of it when he saw the way Sansa smiled at him. So genuine, so friendly, so intimately, that it seemed wrong to gaze upon. Jon felt something twist within him, and wondered who this man was. _A lover, maybe? Mayhaps Sansa has more secrets than I thought._

“My Lords, my Ladies,” Sansa began, before her eyes found the High Dais, “my King, my Queen. I was but a girl of ten, and one when I watched my father, Lord Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, be wrongly convicted of Treason by Lions. I watched as my father father forsake honour for the safety of his family: admitting to a treason he had not committed so that we would be safe.” 

“My fathers’ head was taken by Ilyn Payne, using my father’s own great sword,” Sansa paused, her slender hand going to point to where Tyrion sat. “That man is Tyrion Lannister. His father melted my father’s sword, Ice, into two different longswords – one that was given to the pretender to the throne, and the other that was given to the Kingslayer.” 

“Ice belongs to the sons of House Stark, and so when Lord Tyrion Lannister returned to Kings Landing, I wrote to him – asking him to ensure that the sword of his nephew was in his possession so that my blacksmith, and treasured friend, Ser Gendry Waters, could reforge it with the sword of Oathkeeper, the sword that I acquired from Jamie Lannister when I executed him.” 

“Ser Gendry,” Sansa murmured, a smile on her lips, “can you present what you have created?” 

Ser Gendry knelt before her, and presented lifted a covered sword to her. “We slaved to remake Ice, and it has been done, my Queen. For the Starks, and for the North” 

Sansa smiled brightly at him, and a coil of dread built in Jon’s stomach. Why smile so freely at him, when it was Jon who was her family? When it was Jon who knew her? _But you don’t know her,_ he thought, _Sansa left a girl, and was returned a Queen. Sansa left untouched, and came back scarred. She’s changed._  

Sansa turned to Jon, then, and the smile that had been reserved for the blacksmith before her dampened. It was polite, yes, but that was all it was; a small smile given by a polite Lady. 

“Husband,” Sansa murmured, the sleeves of her gown dragging like pointed daggers on the floor, “Ice is yours.” 

He didn’t understand. 

He was her equal, yes, as King in the North, but she was the Head of House Stark – he was still a Targaryen. _She_ should wield the sword; it was her birth right. _Rickons, really,_ Jon thought, his chest tightening at the boy he hadn’t seen in years. 

“Ice is House Starks,” Jon said, feeling awkward as every eye watched him. “I am unworthy to wield it, as I am not a Stark.” 

Sansa’s lips twitched, as if she wanted to laugh. Jon wondered what was behind night eyes – if it was amusement or annoyance, hatred or love. He didn’t know. Sansa wore silence like she wore her crown, and Jon feared, in that moment, that he would know more silence than love in their marriage.

“But our children shall be,” the Queen begun, although her voice stumbled on the words and the Queen became Sansa once more, “and I wield a sword as well as I wield a dragon, my King. I would have you teach our sons to use Ice, and I would have you care for it, until I have use of it.” 

Jon thought, then, that Sansa Stark was a mystery disguised as a Queen. The threat of those eyes of hers, of the thoughts she kept so hidden, crawled over his skin as she offered him a polite smile. _How many has she deceived,_ Jon wondered, _with that smile of hers?_  

 

* * *

 

There was no bedding.

Sansa had not allowed it, and he wondered if she did it for her, or for him. Either way, he was glad. Jon needn’t have greedy women with their lecherous hands on his skin, nor did he want to watch as Sansa had men grab at her.

He was deep into his cups when he watched Sansa leave the dais, without a word from her mouth about where she was going. Her white gown was a mist in which she travelled, her skirts moving like a serpent at her feet. He had watched her all night, for how could he resist? She smiled, and laughed, and so resembled a ghost of times past, but she was the Sansa he thought a sister. _But did you ever really think her your sister,_ Jon asked himself, _Arya was your sister, and Robb, Bran, and Rickon your brother, but did you really think the image of Catelyn Tully as your sister?_

He told himself no, for it allowed the guilt he felt in him to lessen. It still broiled within him, like a storm, it’s rains destroying what was good and leaving carnage in it’s wake. _She’s your sister,_ it whispered, _and Eddard was your father. Imagine what he would say now, if he saw you in Red and Black and with his daughter as your wife?_

He took another sip of his wine as he watched Sansa disappear through the doors. _My wife._ She had mingled with everyone from the Tyrells to the Mormonts, before she had left.

“ _You know, she was supposed to marry him,”_ Tyrion had said as he pointed to where Sansa was speaking to Willas Tyrell. 

He was a handsome man, but he leant on a cane and one of his legs had been crippled years prior. Beside him had stood a beautiful woman, with chestnut locks spiralling down her back and a low neckline that even in the most liberated of women would think inappropriate. He had seen her once before, her eyes holding a childish disposition and betraying ambitions that were too tall. Thrice married, and thrice a Queen, and yet the woman was no longer the Queen of anything; simply the wife of a bastard child. 

Margery Waters had once been Queen, but now she wore no crown. Her husband still lived, but the child King was no longer allowed at court. Daenerys would not kill a child, but would not have the child of a usurper near her court. Tommen Waters was given as a ward to Tyrion Lannister, and lived at Casterly Rock, where he would remain until the end of his days.

“ _And beside him is your good-niece?”_ Jon had asked in return, and Tyrion scoffed.

“ _That girl is no good-niece of mine,”_ Tyrion had said. “ _She is a wretched, conniving thing and is more of a playmate to Tommen then a wife. Her brother, Willas, has asked the High Septon to annul the marriage, claiming that Margaery is still a maid. She’s as much a maid as I am, and that’s’ what the High Septon said. So the girl is bound to a life with a Lannister bastard – quite fitting, hmm?”_

 _“Are you telling me this for a reason?”_ Jon had asked. 

“ _Margaery and Sansa were once close at court,”_ Tyrion had explained. “ _And see the way she talks to your wife, Jon? She wants something. She wants_ favour.” 

Pushing thoughts of Margaery Tyrell from his mind, Jon pushed open the door to the Queens chambers. It was dark, save for the hearth of the fire and the way it cracked. A shadow sat on the bed, upright and with the fire casting warmth onto the profile of her stone face. 

Sansa sat on the bed, her wedding gown stripped from her and wrapped in a grey robe of silk. It was a fine thing – the finest thing he had seen Sansa wear save for the crown that adorned her scarlet locks. The Sansa of old would have adored such finery, but the Queen in the North trusted practicality; her gowns made of harsh material that would survive winter.

Sansa’s lips were red, but they were not stained by wine. The one thing he had noticed during their feast was that his wife had never touched the wine that was poured for her; not with her meal, or when they toasted their union, or when she cast her eyes coldly to his. His wife kept to her water, and he wondered why – recalling that Sansa would always ask her mother for a sip of her wine when they dined at Winterfell.

Jon realised that she must have been biting at them, and the thought made Jon swell with gratitude. _She is as nervous as I,_ Jon thought, _this cold Queen of Winter was frightened by a man made of flesh, when she had seen more more fearsome sights._ But he was scared, too; he had face the Others, had mounted dragons, and yet the sight of a girl with hair of red and ices of blue made him tremble.

With flushed cheeks, and her hair removed from the Northern style it had been twisted into, she looked like the girl he once dreamt of to be waiting for him in his bedchamber. But this was not a dream – this was not the imagined wedded night of bliss. _This,_ Jon thought, _is politics._  

Jon had expected the wolves to be in their chambers with them, but was surprised to find them gone. It was just he, and Sansa: alone.

“Where are the wolves?” Jon asked, and instantly he thought himself so stupid that those were the first words from his lips. 

A ghost of a smile fluttered onto Sansa’s lips, and her eyes dropped to her gown, her fingers playing with the lace trimmings. “Like you, my King, our siblings have bonds with their wolves – they see what their wolves see. I thought it not appropriate for them to see this.” 

 _So she means to do this,_ Jon thought, _she truly means to do this._  

Jon let out a strangled laugh as he sat his cup down. “So we’re really going to do this?”

Sansa’s brow furrowed, before her teeth tore into that lip of hers once more. “Am I so repulsive, my King?” 

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can you not call me Jon, Sansa? You’ve had no problem calling me bastard before, so I don’t see why you cannot call me Jon now.” 

Sansa nodded. “Jon.” 

“Thank you,” Jon murmured, before he cleared his throat. He could feel his heart hammering against the confines of his chest, it’s song pounding in his ears as the blood rushed through his mind. He stared at Sansa, with ringing ears and a hammering heart, and couldn’t bare to look away from his bride. From Sansa. 

Sansa sighed, and motions to the cup that he had set down. “If you are so nervous, Jon, you may as well finish your wine. It’ll help, believe me.” 

Jon glanced down at the cup, and nodded. _Wine would be good_ , he thought as he downed the glass, closing his eyes to savour the last taste of the Arbour grape. 

When he opened his eyes, Sansa had taken the robe off.

In the dim light of the cracking fire, he could see through the sheer material of her nightgown. He could see the perfectly rounded teats, and small, pink nipples poking through the cream gown, while the slip clung to her rounded child bearing hips, and to the small patch of auburn hair that rested between her thighs. 

 _So fucking beautiful,_ Jon thought, and he so wished then that she was not so painfully beautiful. He wished she was ugly; that she was not the beauty that she was, for it made it so hard to not want her when she was so beautiful. He looked away quickly, not wanting to see anything that she wouldn’t want him to. He couldn’t believe her nerve – how quick she was to show him her, and how easily she had shed the nightgown. It was not honourable to gawk at a woman like that, but honour made no mind to his cock, which was straining hard in his breeches. 

He heard a laugh then, so rich and beautiful that it was more beautiful than the sight of her could ever be.

“Jon, it’s your right to look,” Sansa said, her voice rich in warmth and so oddly different than the monster of Ice he had known as the Queen of Winter, “I am your wife, after all.”

Jon swallowed his nervousness then, and spared her a look – his fists clenching as he saw her then. She was still standing in that barely detectable nightgown, playing with an auburn curl. There was a hesitant mask on her face, and Jon wondered if Sansa would ever look at him as she had looked at the Blackfish tonight. But he knew that the blindingly beautiful smile that could bring men to their knees would never be offered to him. 

 _A bastard knows no smiles like that,_ Jon thought, and yet as he thought of the way her entire face had warmed with her happiness, Jon wished that it wasn’t the way of things. For he would give everything, would do anything, to be rewarded with a smile like that. 

She moved towards him then, and Jon took an instinctive step back. _This is wrong,_ his mind screamed, but his body, oh his body disagreed. 

“Jon,” Sansa murmured, her hand coming to rest on his cheek. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m your wife, and you are my husband. We must do this, we _must_ for if we don’t they could take you away and I can’t have that.” 

Jon glanced down at her, and wanted, oh how he wanted to wrap his arms around her and press his lips to her. But he remembers it’s Sansa, and then his arms feel limp, and she seems forbidden. She was too good for his touch, and he would not ruin her with it – the touch of a bastard was not the touch a woman like Sansa should wish to have. _It’s not right, it’s not right._

“I’m no maid, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” Sansa murmured. She said it so flippantly that Jon stumbled slightly. “I apologise for it, but it couldn’t have been helped.”

No maid? Did Sansa think he would care?

“Why apologise for it?” Jon asked, his voice gruff as he thought of caves and a wildling woman. “I am no maid either.”

“But I am a woman-“

“-you are a Queen, who has known more battle than most men,” Jon murmured, feeling incensed that she would lower herself based on such a small thing. “I care not if you’re a maid.”

Sansa glanced to the ground, before she smiled. “You know, when I was a girl, I thought you strange. The Bastard of Winterfell. I dreamt of gallant knights and beautiful princes, and spat at you for being a bastard, because I thought your birth meant something. And now the bastard that I spat at is the gallant prince that I always wished for, and I a fool. Funny, isn’t it?” 

Jon didn’t think it funny. It meant that Sansa no longer thought of an endless summer, and Knights that would save her. It meant that Sansa had known too much pain, to believe the lies told to children. It meant that Sansa had been robbed of her naivety, and he found it sad.

“It’s sad,” Jon supplied, and he watched as the smile on her lips froze.

“Aye,” Sansa murmured, nodding as her smile slipped from her face and ice replaced warmth. “It always is.”

She remained quiet for a moment, before she moved away from him and sat on the bed. “This will not be for love, Jon, but we must give the North an heir. If you must, think of that Wildling girl of yours, or maybe even a girl in the South, I don’t care. Just do it.”

A shuddering breath escaped him, before he nodded. Their marriage would not be valid until it was consummated, and the North would not be safe until they provided it with an heir. 

 _A child with dark hair, and Tully eyes,_ Jon thought, the image rendering him still. _A child with hair of fire, and grey eyes._

_Wrong._

_Wrong._

_Wrong._

_You’re so **wrong**. _

Jon ignored it all, and walked to the bed. He pulled his doublet off, and then his tunic next. _If she wants to be fucked without feeling, that’s what I’ll do,_ Jon thought, _give her what she wants, a loveless marriage, and that’s what I’ll do. For a Bastard does as he’s told._  

The strings of his breeches proved difficult, for his hands trembled. He swallowed his nervousness, before he began to slow and unlace his breeches. Sansa watched with those eyes of ice, no smiles for him now. 

 _Why would she smile at me?_ Jon thought, _I am but a bastard to her, something to fill her notions of songs._

When he finally stood before her, bare, Jon watched as her eyes took in his body. All the scars, all the burns, all the betrayal. It was ugly, and no woman would think to want that for a husband.

But if Sansa thinks so, she doesn’t say anything. 

Jon expected her to copy his motions, taking her own shift off, but she keeps it on. She does not say why, and Jon does not ask. 

“Do you … do you wish for me to ready you?” Jon asked, feeling so sick, so perverted, and so wrong. 

He thought he saw anger there, in those eyes of hers. He thought he saw pain, but mayhaps it was impatience, for he had thought much of Sansa Stark and so little had been right. Sansa leant back, and spread her legs. “Just get it over with.”

She was so tight, unbearably tight, that Jon let out a shuddering gasp when he entered her. _Gods, gods, gods, gods, what is this heaven? How have I been allowed this?_

She let out a breath, something of discomfort, as he began to move inside her. But she was silent, and her eyes were staring into the canopy, so distant and so cold. Jon wanted to bring her eyes to him, to demand that she look at what she was making him do, but he wouldn’t. _I’m just her bastard,_ Jon thought as he moved, in and out and _gods it felt so fucking good._

He cannot last long, for he thinks that he has deprived himself these past weeks with her always near. He comes with a groan, and she is silent. His seed spills in her, and she squeezes her legs around his hips, keeping him there for a moment as she continues to look at the canopy; eyes of ice becoming eyes of the tormented. 

“There,” Jon finally said, pulling out of her and collapsing at her side. 

Sansa nodded, her face ashen. “Thank you, my King.”

 _Jon,_ he wants to tell her. _Call me Jon._

As soon as her eyelids droop, and she lets sleep claim her, Jon leaves. 

He cannot stay, and so he doesn’t.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's sad. Basically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, whah, you guys are killing it with the kudos and comments! Thanks so much! If anyone is wondering about my update schedule, at the moment it should be every day.

**SANSA STARK**

 

_It’s sad._

Those were the words that killed her.

_It’s sad._

He looked at her in disgust, and she wanted to agree with him. _It is sad,_ she had wanted to scream, _her life was sad, and so is his._

But he still thought it so. 

_It’s sad._

And so it was.

She didn’t know what she had expected of her wedding to Jon Snow to be, but she had already had the elaborate farce she had dreamt of when she was a girl and she needn’t have it a second time. She had had the Great Sept of Baelor, and the people of Kings Landing to witness her union; a union with a man whose family had murdered her own. And Sansa had had the perfect Prince - golden haired, and green eyed, Joffrey Baratheon had been everything the songs had promised her, and he had been _hers_. 

Sansa could still call the happiness she had felt at her mother confirming her suspicions; that she was betrothed to the Crown Prince and destined to be Queen. She had taken Joffreys arm when he had offered it, and had given him sweet smiles, and blind eyes. But it mattered not to the bastard Prince, who had looked so beautiful; he had been one of the worst of them all, and instead of accepting the love she gave him, he took her fathers head and every joy she had ever felt.

With Jon, she knew she would not be harmed. It was an odd thought, for Sansa, when men had always promised her pain. Every man, save her family, had hurt her - had scarred her - and robbed her. Joffrey robbed her of her father, and her scarless skin; Petyr had robbed her everything else. Her name, her face, her body, Petyr took it all and Sansa had lied beneath him, unable to stop him from taking any of it. _For you have a price on your head, sweetling,_ she could hear him whisper. But she knew, gods she knew, that Jon would never harm her. 

 _Just like Robb would never forget you?_ A voice asked, and Sansa felt her stomach drop. The thought of Robb was a painful one; the though that he had forsaken her for a warm bed was unbearable.  _Forgotten, and for what? He's dead, and the girl became nothing,_ Sansa thought,  _forgotten by the North, just as Robb had forgotten about me._

But Jon was not Robb - _Jon is Jon, even if he may be a dragon, now,_ Sansa thought, thinking of how he still wore that solemn mask of his. Sansa had thought after their talk in the Godswood that it may not be so bad; _mayhaps we could grow to love each other, like mother and father._ And there had been warmth between them – when she had presented Ice to him, he had given her the warmest look since they had seen each other again.

But when she bared herself to him, when she had allowed herself to smile, and _laugh_ around him – when she had allowed herself to be Sansa – he had called it sad.

_It’s sad._

She was. 

She woke to an empty bed, and a throbbing core. It was nothing painful, of course it couldn’t be when she had suffered so much more. But it was not lovely, or pleasant as any of the girls in the Vale had once gossiped.

 _“He had me screaming,”_ They had giggled, and Alayne had to agree. _He does make me scream_ , Alyane had wanted to say, but she would never giggle about it. He made her cry, as well, when he held her down. 

It was later that she learned that when they said that their lovers had made them scream, they meant in a pleasurable way.

She hadn’t screamed last night, and in a way she was grateful. He didn’t force her, he didn’t harm her, but he didn’t love her.

 _It’s sad._

“My Queen,” They said as she entered the Great Hall, her skirts swishing at her feet as she walked to the dais.

Her husband sat on the dais, but she did not acknowledge him. His words echoed in her mind, and she couldn’t force herself to look at him. _It’s sad,_ he had said.

As she sat, some looked at her expectantly but she wasn’t going to indulge their interest. “Lady Maege, have we received any ravens from Winterfell?” 

“Nay, my Queen,” Lady Mormont said, smiling slightly. “Although my daughter Lyanna writes that Rickon has been writing her.”

Sansa smiled slightly, shaking her head. “I cannot believe your girl has gotten him to write. He barely attends his lessons, and yet Lyanna Mormont can get him to write letters! I fear I may need to host her at Winterfell so my brother gets some work done.”

Lady Mormont smiled indulgently, her eyes gleaming at the offer. “I believe Lyanna would be grateful for such an honour, my lady.”

Sansa smiled, nodding before she turned to her Uncle. “I fear, Uncle Brynden, that we will not stay much longer – I feel we have stayed to long as it is.”

“Never, my Queen,” He said with a smile. “Riverrun is yours, as it always will be.” 

“Riverrun is the Tully’s,” Sansa corrected, “but I am glad you think so highly of me, Uncle.”

Sansa looked up, and her eyes find her husband as he spoke to the Southern King. Sansa cleared her throat, and the two Targaryen’s looked at her; violet and grey eyes staring at her.  _Fire and Ice,_ Sansa thought, wondering if her Aunt Lyanna and Rhaegar Targaryen has seemed as different as the two dragon brothers were. 

“I have decided,” Sansa began, “that we shall ride for Winterfell at the end of the Sennight, husband. You are to return to Winterfell as my husband, so our people can see us.”

Jon nodded, but does not meet her eyes. She is grateful; she cannot see the pity in his eyes again. “As you wish, my Queen.” 

 

* * *

 

“And you will write?”

“As much as I can,” Sansa murmured, her hand tucked into her Uncles arm as she stared at him. “I will ask Arya to write as well, for I know she struggles to sit long enough to eat let alone to write.” 

Ser Brynden smiled, indulgently. “The girl is like her wolf, and I couldn’t expect her to write an old fish like me. She’s young, and gods know she has been through too much for a lack of a letter to offend me.”

Sansa smiled slightly. “Mayhaps you should tell her about one of your triumphs in battle. She’ll definitely write you back if you begin telling her what she wants to hear; of blood, and battle.”

“And here I was thinking that her Queen wanted her to be a Lady,” Ser Brynden said.

Sansa shrugged. “Arya is not me, or mother. Arya is Arya, and I will not ask her to change, although her hair is getting longer, which makes her look less like ‘Arry.” 

Ser Brynden is silent for a beat, before he pauses. “What did she say of your marriage? Have you written her yet?”

“A raven has not returned,” Sansa murmured. 

“And you didn’t tell her before you departed?” Ser Brynden asked, remembering his niece’s letters in the moons that had led up to the peace talks.

Sansa shook her head as they continued to walk along the river bank. “No. I was too afraid of what she would say; or more so what she would do.” 

“You should have spoken to her,” Ser Brynden murmured, and Sansa sighed. 

“I know, but …” She trailed off, before she stopped and look at her Uncle, “do you think it was the wrong decision, Uncle? To ask for him?”

 “It was the only decision you could have made that would keep the dragons from demanding the North,” Ser Brynden soothed her, watching as her face unfolded with worry.

“I know, I know,” Sansa mumbled, before she began to fidget with her braid. “But he hates me, Uncle. He called me sad, and he looked at me like he wished me to be someone else.”

“It’s a political match,” Ser Brynden murmured. “From what I know of the King, he is not a political man. He’s like your father was, Sansa – he does not do well with politics.”

“But he would have had to marry for alliance,” Sansa rationalised. “Whether it be me, or Arianne of Dorne, or maybe even Shireen Baratheon.”

Ser Brynden laughed, heartily. “All these women, wearing the crown of their fathers. Hopefully they do better than the men before them.”

Sansa allowed herself to smile then, her Tully eyes warm for her Uncle. “They shall call us the Mothers of Westeros; bringing life back to these Seven Kingdoms.”

Ser Brynden smiled, before he gazed at his niece. “I’ll miss you, niece.”

“I wish you could come with us,” Sansa mused, looking over the river, “but the Riverlands need their Lord, Uncle.” 

“I shall come visit soon enough,” Ser Brynden said, nodding. “I shall need to see that wild nephew of mine, if I’m to teach him how to properly use a sword. Bloody boy would impale himself before he won a fight.”

“Rickon could win as many fights as he so wished,” Sansa mused, amusement in her eyes, “but it would be with his teeth, and not with a sword.”

“Skagos wasn’t the best teacher,” Ser Brynden chuckled, “but let’s be grateful that he is not feasting on the flesh of men.”

“Aye,” Sansa laughed, “let’s be grateful. And who knows, Uncle – maybe the King will teach him how to wield a sword.”

Sansa could see it now, as she had seen it so many times prior. The thought of the boy that so resembled Robb being taught by Jon was enough to warm her, despite his coldness and indifference. Rickon had been deprived of a father, when they had ridden South so long ago, and now he would have Jon – a man that could teach him about his own father better than maybe Sansa could.

Sansa had tried, of course, to teach Rickon of who Eddard Stark was. But when Rickon would ask, and Sansa would open her mouth to respond, the words would become stuck and her hands would tremble, and all she would see is the last thing she had seen of Eddard Stark; a rotting head on a spike.

Arya, too, had tried to explain to Rickon about their Lord Father, but she grew impatient with his constant questions and would end the round of questions with an insult being thrown and a brawl breaking out between them. And so Sansa would break them apart, as curses were thrown and their feet would kick, wondering how she had become their Warden. 

 _Rickon needs Jon,_ Sansa thought then, as she had thought months prior, _Rickon needs a man to teach him about how to be good, and how to be true. Rickon needs a brother to tell him what it means to be a Stark, for we sisters of his are sometimes too hard on him._

“The King will be good for him,” Ser Brynden agreed, “and Arya too.”

Sansa nodded, playing with her braid once more. “It makes it easier, knowing that while he may hate me he will love Winterfell.” 

“He doesn't hate you, Sansa,” Ser Brynden said, shaking his head. “He would be a fool to hate you.”

Sansa stopped beside a large oak tree, and sighed. “I have forced him to be a politician, a Prince, when he doesn’t want to be. He hates me, I know it.”

“He would have hated Princess Arianne more,” Ser Brynden murmured. “And he would have despised Storms End. Winterfell is his … home.”

Sansa looked to her Uncle as he struggled with speaking of a bastard his own niece had hated so; a bastard that was now married to his nieces daughter. Sansa sighed, inhaling the scent of the river before she glanced above to the sky. The clouds above were dark, and foreboding, but even few moments the sun would peek through a patch of grey and Sansa would feel warmth of her skin. 

“The future shall be good,” Sansa whispered then, almost promising it to herself. “It has to be.”

“And it shall, my Queen.”

 

* * *

 

They bowed as she walked towards her horse.

It was a white beauty, the same horse she had ridden atop when she had watched her army fight for Winterfell, and Sansa loved her. _Snow_ , she had named her, thinking her so like that they fell from the heavens when she had been a young girl. And yet now the name only served to aggravate her, for it was another Snow that now claimed her thoughts. 

The Dragons had left the day prior, taking with them their court and riding for the South. Sansa had stood beside her husband as he bid his family – his new family – farewell, her eyes cold and trapped on the beast that breathed fire. Sansa had accepted the Queens embrace, for they were kin now, but that did not mean that the Queens fire could melt away Sansa’s coldness to the South and so when she watched them disappear over the hills, Sansa had been glad. 

With the dragons gone, and riding South once more, Sansa had finally felt as if she could breathe.

Sansa looked over her party, from the Mormont men who were being hounded by their Lady to where Lord Manderly was mounting his own horse. _Where is he,_ she wondered, only to let out a gasp when she heard him.

“My Lady,” He said, his voice gruff. When she turned to face him, she was once again confronted by ghosts that clouded her vision. Her husband had forgone his colours of red, and black, and now wore a Northern jerkin and fur cloak. “Are you not to take the Wheelhouse?”

“I do not take a wheelhouse if I can help it, my King,” Sansa murmured, feeding Snow another sugar cube. “I’d rather ride with my men.”

Jon watched her, his gaze burning into her skin as she tore her eyes from his. _It’s sad,_ he had said, so pitying, so hateful.

He doesn’t say anything to her again, but when she goes to mount her house, Jon is there, and it is his hands at her waist – helping her onto her saddle. Her head snapped back so violently as she settled into her saddle, her eyes wide as Jon’s burning hands left her waist and he turned to where his own horse awaited him. 

And so they begin their ride to Winterfell.

They found an Inn when the skies went dark, for their King and Queen. The innkeepers were wide eyed, and slack jawed, but they are privileged to have the presence of the crown and so the inn is theirs for the night. But it was not a large inn, and Sansa would share the chambers with her husband, for the second time in their marriage.

She was bathing when he entered.

There was no screen to hide her, and so when she heard the door open, she thought it Jeyne.

“Oh, your back,” Sansa mused, sliding deeper into the tub as she closed her eyes. “Could you please read me one of the letters that came with the raven, Jeyne? I don’t want to get it wet.”

“It is not Jeyne, my lady.”

Sansa’s eyes opened with a force, and her head snapped to where the door was. Her eyes met his and just as they had when he had helped her onto her horse, they burned. Sansa hastily grabbed a hold of one of the flannels that had been placed on the rim of her tub, and placed it over her bare breasts.

“Husband,” She said, acknowledging him with a nod. “I didn’t expect you.”

Jon’s eyes looked away from her then, as if she were a gruesome sight. Jon shrugged of his cloak, and walked to the bed, his lips sealed as he turned from her. Sansa watched as he removed his jerkin, leaving only his tunic on as he begun to unlace his boots. Sansa was quick to remove herself from the tub, and dry herself, pulling her night gown over her head and covering it with her robe.

 “Do you have need of me?” He asked, and that question cut into her like the same knife she had cut her face with, so many years prior.

Sansa motioned to the desk in the corner, as she tied her robe. “On the desk is a letter – may you read it to me?”

Jon didn’t say anything, simply crossing the room to where the letter stood – his eyes on his feet before they found the letter.

“It is from Arya,” Jon breathed, his eyes greedily taking in the hurried scrawl of his sisters that he hadn’t seen in so long. It was still the same, despite it having been years since he had last seen it. 

“And what does she say?”

“’ _Sansa,’”_ He begun, “ _’Expect to be throttled when you arrive at Winterfell, for I have never read anything so stupid in my life. I asked you to bring him back, but not like this. You may be Queen, but you are still my sister and gods be good, if you have any sense you will not return to Winterfell if you wish for that pretty red hair of yours to remain on your head. Be ready to be scalped. Signed Arya, of House Stark.”_

“As if I would need her name to know it was from her,” Sansa said with a chuckle, before she looked to Jon.

He was _beaming_ at the words of her sister, with a smile so happy that Sansa thought it odd to see it on his face. He shook his head, he too laughing. “She is still the same.”

“As I told you she was,” Sansa murmured, and Jon looked at her then – truly look at her then.

And he gave her a smile.

It was not as wide as the smile reserved for Arya, but it was a smile and it meant that maybe Jon did not hate her as much as Sansa thought.

“How did you come to find her?” Jon asked then, the letter cradled in his hands like a fine jewel.

Sansa smiled slightly at the thought of that day, when Winterfell still looked a ruin and Rickon still called her mother. 

“ _But mother, I don’t want to do it,”_ Rickon had said, as Sansa tried to get him to listen to Maester Marwin. “ _He stinks of ink and he stutters and he knows nothing of Skagos, mother.”_

 _“Rickon Stark,”_ Sansa had begun, her eyes narrowing as she knelt before him, “ _this is not up for argument. You are to study with Maester Marwin, and attend **all** your lessons, unless you wish to be brought before my small council?” _

_“I don’t care about any of those Lords or Ladies,”_ Rickon had spat, petulantly. “ _Shaggy could eat them all, and then I wouldn’t have to listen to any of them.”_

 _“Well then I will have you brought before me,”_ Sansa had murmured, “ _and you shall be witness to my fury. Do you understand?”_

Rickon had shifted nervously after that. “ _But, mother-“_

 _“Sansa,”_ Sansa had corrected. “ _Rickon, I am not your mother. I am your sister, Sansa, just as Robb and Bran were your brothers.”_  
  
_“But they’re all gone,”_ Rickon had whispered. “ _They all left.”_

“ _I know,”_ Sansa had murmured, wrapping him tightly into her arms and breathing in his auburn locks, “ _I know, Rickon. But we will never leave each other again, okay?”_

Rickon had nodded, so solemn that he reminded her of their father. “ _Never again.”_

 _“Which is why you should be good, and not run from Maester Marwin,”_ Sansa explained, her hand coming to cup his cheek. “ _As a Queen, I need a Knight and if you are not educated, how can you be a Knight?”_

Rickon’s brow had furrowed, and he looked confused. “ _I don’t want to be a Knight. That was Bran.”_

 _“But you want to be a warrior, no?”_ Sansa had asked, cocking a brow when Rickon had nodded. “ _Well a Knight is a warrior all the same.”_

 _“If you say so,”_ Rickon had grumbled, still apprehensive, as a guard ran for her. 

“ _My Queen!”_ He had bellowed, motioning to the gates. “ _The men have sighted the wolves coming to the gate, my Queen. They say there is someone with them.”_

 _Nymeria,_ Sansa had thought, thinking of the wolf that had found her in the woods with Brienne after she had first left the Vale.

“ _Is it Nymeria?”_ Sansa had asked, turning to Rickon. “ _Rickon, was Nymeria with Shaggy this morning?”_

 _“Nymeria left last night,”_ Rickon had said with a shrug. “ _She went to look for something.”_

 _“How do you know that?”_ Sansa had asked, but she needn’t ask; not when she was a Stark and knew what Starks did.

“ _She showed me,”_ Rickon had said, his Tully eyes glinting beneath the sun. “ _I think she was looking for our sister.”_

It was then, at those words, that Sansa had turned to the guards. “ _OPEN THE GATES!”_

Sansa had gathered her skirts in her hand, and had run as fast as her legs allowed. The gates had opened, painfully slow, and Sansa had run past them, followed by her younger brother and his wolf, as well as a slew of guards. 

And there she had been – her wild wolf of a sister, riding Nymeria, as if she was going to battle rather than going home.

Arya had dismounted the wolf, and had ran too when she saw her sister. It had been painful, Sansa could recall, how fast they had slammed into each other and had tumbled to the ground. Their heads had knocked, and their bodies had slammed to the ground, and they had laughed. They had cried too, but all Sansa could remember was the laughter in her ear and the feel of her sister’s warm body in her arms. _Alive,_ Sansa could remember thinking, _Arya is alive._

“ _I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,”_ Arya had said, a rush of words in Sansa’s ears as she cried. “ _I never meant to leave you there, Sansa. I’m so sorry.”_

 _“But you are alive,”_ Sansa had whispered, “ _how can you be sorry for surviving?”_

“She found us,” Sansa revealed, “on the back of her wolf she rode, and the gates of Winterfell opened for her. Rickon had found me before then, turning up like a Wildling with that wolf of his and I knew it was him – when I saw that hair and those eyes, gods, Jon, he looked like so Robb. You’ll see, when we get to Winterfell, how much he looks like him.”

Jon smiled, rubbing at his beard. “Leave it to Arya to make such an entrance.” 

“Hmm,” Sansa hummed, before she glanced over her shoulder. “She missed you. So much.” 

 _I did too,_ Sansa wanted to say, but she doesn’t. She can’t. 

“When I got her into a bath, and she told me everything, about where she had been and what she had done and how she had survived, the first thing she asked me was what I knew of you,” Sansa told him, biting her lip.

“And what did you say?”

“That Jon Snow is gone; that he never was. I told her you were now our cousin, and a Prince," Sansa let out a breath. "She threw a book at my head.”

Jon looked down to the letter again, before he looked at Sansa as she sat next to the fire, her hair dripping from her bath. “I thought to write to you, when we won Kings Landing.” 

Sansa cocked a brow, but didn’t say anything; she simply listened.

“When my Aunt told me that you were the only one left, I was … I was going to come back to Winterfell,” Jon admitted, running a hand through his hair, “I was going to commit myself to your service, to ask for your forgiveness as Warden for abandoning my Watch. I wanted to come protect you.”

“But you did not?”

“No,” Jon said, turning away from her. “No, I didn’t.”

“Why?” 

“You wore our brothers crown, and songs were sung about your fierceness,” Jon murmured. “I thought that the Queen of Winter would not want a bastards blood dirtying her walls, and so I didn’t write.”

Sansa remained silent, before she sighed. “I would have opened Winterfell’s gates if I knew you wanted to come.”

“But you didn’t,” Jon murmured, “because I never wrote.”

“No,” Sansa agreed. “No, you never did.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return to Winterfell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, you guys are crazy with all your love! I so appreciate it - really, reading you comments make working full time a lot easier!

**THE BASTARD OF WINTERFELL**

 

Winterfell was not how he remembered it.

But it had been destroyed, and rebuilt in the time he had been gone, and so he hadn’t expected the castle from his youth.

Grey walled, and domineering, the profile of Winterfell is where the crown of the North lies and it was meant to be feared. But Jon could not fear the castle, nor could he ever fear the North. It was where he grew, and his family lived. It was where Eddard Stark had raised him – where Lyanna Stark had grown.

Jon didn’t think of his mother often, but as he saw Winterfell, his mind whispered Lyanna Starks name. She was little more than a statue in the crypt to him – an Aunt who was lost by a greedy Prince who locked her in a tower and raped her. But Ned Stark had protected her bastard, had claimed him his own, all for the love he bore Lyanna.

 _She was just a girl,_ Jon thought as he looked to Winterfell, _and the world was torn apart because of her._

 _Selfish,_ his mind whispers and Jon wondered if it was awful of him to name his mother so. She was dead, buried in the Crypts of the castle they approached and yet all he could think of when they said his name was how selfish she had been. Howland Reed had claimed Lyanna loved Rhaegar – that at the Tourney of Harrenhall, she had been bewitched and the dragon Prince had too fallen for the winter rose of the North.

But his parents actions had ruined the peace; his parents actions had destroyed families, and had murdered good men and women. His parents selfishness bore a wore that would last his entire lifetime, all for what? _Love?_ Jon wondered, thinking that if love was so blind and ignorant, he wanted no part in it.

He looked to Sansa then. _My wife._ They had barely shared few words on the Kingsroad, with Sansa taking to her duties as Queen and Jon taking to his duties as King. But when they had ridden through the towns, had seen their people, they had been cheered and presented with offerings.

 _They love us,_ he remembered thinking as his wife was revered, _they love her._

Sansa was nothing like Lyanna Stark, Jon had decided. He had thought her selfish, when they had first married, and he still did, but Sansa was not selfish in the way his mother had been. _It is for the North,_ is her answer for every action of hers, whether she wants to do it or not. He had found, after weeks on the road with her, that Sansa knew more of duty than he had expected.

It would come out when she was speaking to her council. They would plead their cases to her, and she would listen, patiently and eager to hear if she can aid in their cause.

“ _Just think, my Queen, the Dreadfort needs to be appointed a liege Lord and for all he has done, I would say my son would be a great receiver of such an honour,”_ Lord Umber had said.

“ _He would be a great Lord of the Dreadfort, but I have not decided yet what I am to do with the god forsaken place,”_ Sansa had murmured, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “ _I have half a mind to pull it down, brick by brick, but there are good and loyal Northerners that live on those lands and I cannot make them suffer any more than they have.”_

 _“But are they truly loyal, my Queen, when most supported the turn coat Bolton?”_ Lady Mormont had said, shaking her head. “ _I say we make an example of the Dreadfort – tear it down and divide the lands while keeping them in your name.”_

 _“I have too many lands to count, Lady Mormont, why should I have need for any more?”_ Sansa had wondered, before her eyes found his. “ _What say you, my King? What would you have done to the Dreafort?”_

 _“The Boltons are no longer, at your own hands, my Queen,”_ Jon had said, “ _The castle itself could be given to a good Lord, but mayhaps it would do well to reward someone of lower birth. While Lord Umbers son is loyal, and true, he is to inherit Last Heath. Maybe it would do well for your men to see one of their own rasied high, so they know their Queen to be a Queen who rewards those of loyalty.”_

Sansa had smiled at him, nodding, but had not said anything else in relation to the matter.

But he had seen how her eyes had sparkled at the thought of tearing down the Dreadfort, and how she had stared at Lady Mormont with wonder as she spoke of destroying the castle. But Sansa did not allow herself to be ruled by her own whims, Jon had come to find; she was a committed Queen, and _mayhaps,_ Jon thought, _it was better that the crown adorned her head, than their brother._  

 _But I can’t think that,_ Jon thought, pained at the thought of his slain King who had forsaken promises for love. _Fuck love,_ Jon thought, _for love is the death of duty and honour, and love only leads to the death of men that embrace it._

As soon as the Queen in the North saw Winterfell, she urged her horse to a gallop forward, leaving behind all the others. Jon had never seen Sansa do such a thing, and yet she had disappeared down the track, her copper hair flying behind her. _No,_ Jon thought, thinking of all the things that could happen to her on the small road back to  Winterfell, and knew he could not allow her to be alone. 

His horse flew, following the path Sansa had disappeared down. The wind was behind him, and through the trees he saw flashes of copper hair and a blue gown. _Sansa_. And then Winterfell was in front of him, domineering, and ancient, and _home._ Jon urged the horse forward, the poor beast labouring hard as he raced towards the gates of Winterfell. 

As Jon entered the gate, he saw winter roses and grey walls. The courtyard was bigger than it had once been, or maybe it was because of how many people awaited them. Jon had expected Sansa to be a Queen here, as she had been at Riverrun; but Jon was slowly learning that Sansa cared for no titles when it came to those she loved.

Jon found her first by the sight of hair of fire. She had dismounted that white beast of hers, and had found herself wrapped in the embrace of Rickon, or so Jon thought it to be Rickon. _Sansa was right,_ Jon thought as he saw the auburn hair and the lanky child that clung to Sansa. He was nine now, but oh how he looked so like Robb. It was as if the Gods were taunting him, with gifting Winterfell with the sight of Robb Stark once more – only he bore a different name.

Jon stalled then, at the sight of the courtyard he had left seven years ago. _I was a boy, sent to the Wall,_ Jon thought, _and now I am a King, married to their Queen._ How would they receive him, he wasn’t sure. He was a dragon, and this was the home of wolves. The pack was not known to be kind to outsiders, _but I am no outsider,_ Jon thought weakly, _I am a Stark bastard, just as I am a Targaryen bastard._

He could feel their eyes on him – watching, judging, whispering – about the dragon of ice. That was what they called him, when he rode Rhaegal to the Wall and had battled against the dead. He could feel their fear, their apprehension, and their wonder; it was so different to how he felt the last time he had stood in this courtyard, that it was disconcerting.

Jon thought, then, of a different time; of a different royal party who came to Winterfell. He thought of how he stood behind the Stark family, and had watched Robert Baratheon, fat and full of wine, embracing who he thought to be his father.

 _“Take me down to your crypt, Eddard,”_ He had said, not sparing a glance to the golden lioness behind him, “ _I would pay my respects.”_  

To Robert Baratheon, Lyanna would always be a story; the beautiful stories that Eddard Stark had told of her, and the songs they sang about how she was taken. He thought himself in love her, that much Jon knew, but Jon didn’t think his mother who had risked everything for Rhaegar could love him as much as the Stag King had claimed.

 _Stark women are made of ice,_ Jon thought, his gaze belonging to Sansa then, _and Lyanna Stark would have been nothing but cold to the storm that was Robert Baratheon._

As soon as he was dismounted, he was stabbed.

Or so he thought.

The impact to his chest felt so familiar, but it was not a knife that stabbed him – it was a girl’s hand. Hair of black filled his nose, and he could hear someone _sobbing_. _Arya,_ he thought, _this is Arya._

He was crying too, he realised, as he pulled her into his arms and _cried_. He cared not that the whole of the North saw, for he had missed Arya as much as the drowned missed breathing. She was his little sister, the defiant girl he had gifted with that thin sword of hers. _Needle_. Jon laughed at the thought of it, and laughed at the feel of her. _This is home._

“I’ve missed you,” Jon breathed, pressing kisses to her cheeks, “I’ve missed you so much, Arya. Gods, Arya, thank the gods you’re here.”

Arya tightened her hold on his neck, and through his tears, Jon could see his wife, and how those two eyes of ice stared at him.

 

* * *

 

Arya did not throttle her sister, as she had promised.

Instead, Arya had wrapped her arms around her sister and held her close.

She whispered something in Sansa’s ear, something meant only for her, to which Sansa sighed at.

Sansa turned to Jon, and her smile dampened slightly, but it did not drop. “My King, come and meet Rickon again.”  

Sansa clucked over Rickon, as if she were his mother.

The boy stared at him with narrowed eyes, as if he were suspicious of the man that his sister called King. Sansa ran her hands over Rickons wild curls of fire, a soft, motherly smile on her lips as she knelt down before him. The hem of her dress was stained with the mud of Winterfell’s courtyard, but Sansa didn’t seem to mind, which surprised Jon. She had always hated getting her gowns dirty. 

 _But Sansa has seen more blood than most soldiers,_ Jon reminded himself, _surely dirt couldn’t bother her any longer._

“Rickon, this is Jon,” Sansa explained, smiling brightly. “You remember, Jon, don’t you Rickon? He’s our cousin, and my … my husband.” 

The word seems to come out hard for Sansa, and Jon wondered then if their marriage is as hard to stomach for her as it was for him. He wondered, as he gazed around the courtyard the people that came to greet their Queen, if Sansa was as revolted at the thought of their union as he.

“I thought him our brother?” Rickon said, confused. “Arya calls him ‘brother’.” 

Sansa smiled warmly. “You know our father, Rickon? You know who he was, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” Rickon said with a proud nod. “Eddard Stark.”

“Yes,” Sansa murmured, before her eyes met Jons. “And Father had to protect Jon, a long time ago, when Jons mother, our Aunt, died. You remember your lessons, don’t you? You remember who Aunt Lyanna was?” 

“She went with Prince Rhaegar,” Rickon recalled, a crease in his brow forming. “And Father found her in the Tower of Joy in Dorne.” 

“He found Aunt Lyanna with a babe, Rickon,” Sansa murmured. “Remember? That babe was Jon, and he was the son of Prince Rhaegar. Father had to tell people that Jon was a Snow, even though he was actually a Targaryen, so that Robert Baratheon would not harm him.”

“So he’s not … our brother?” Rickon asked, confused.

Rickons words serve well enough to impale Jon with, and as he stood there, watching as Sansa runs her slender hands over Rickons face and smiles her warmth at him, he is reminded, again and again, that he is no Stark, no matter how much he may wish it. He expected Sansa to agree with Rickon, but when she opens her red stained lips, they are not to call him a stranger as he so suspected. 

“He’s family,” Sansa said simply, smiling up at Jon. “He’s my husband now, and he is King in the North. He’s going to teach you how to fight, Rickon, and how to grow to be an honourable man.”

“I can already fight though,” Rickon said, simply enough.

Sansa laughed, the sound rich and beautiful. “Aye, you can but Jon is a famed warrior – the dragon of ice. He can tell you a fair few battle stories, if you ask him nicely.”

Rickon turned his Tully eyes to Jon then, and Jon felt like he was talking to Robb then, in the Godswood, about their future.  

“ _When I am Lord of Winterfell,”_ Robb had said simply, “ _I will legitimize you. You shall be a Stark, and there will be nothing anyone can do, not mother, not father, not anyone.”_

 _“When you are Lord of Winterfell,”_ Jon could remember replying, “ _I shall be a man of the Nights Watch. And don’t you know, Robb, that only Kings can legitimize bastards?”_

Robb had laughed. “ _Then I guess I’ll have to steal someone’s crown.”_

“Will you, Jon?” Rickon asked, his eyes wide, and excitable. “Will you tell me of the Battle of Ice and Fire? Or maybe even the Battle at Hardhome?”

“Aye,” Jon replied roughly, “I shall tell you it all, if Sansa says I am allowed.”

“Why would she not?” Rickon asked, confused. “She always tells me her battle stories.”

Jon looked to Sansa, and she blushed then, shaking her head. “Okay, that’s enough talk of battle. Osha, I believe Lord Rickon still has a lesson with the Maestar to be attending to?”

“But you’ve just come back, Mot- _Sansa,_ ” Rickon said, and Jon watched as Sansa’s eyes lit up, and amazement consumed her face. It was a beautiful sight, really, and Jon would only think to see that face on Sansa Stark when comets blazed through the sky or when the Snow halted in its fall. Not when a child of nine calls his sister by her name. 

“He’s called her mother every day since he’s come back,” Arya whispered to him then. “He must really want to get out of his lessons.”

“He calls her mother?” Jon asked, confused. “Why?”

“Surely you’re not blind, Jon,” Arya said, motioning to where their sister was dealing with Rickon. “She is exactly like mother was, when she was alive.” 

But Jon couldn’t see it.

All Jon could see was Sansa, and she was enough of a sight to behold.

 

* * *

 

“I didn’t want _this_ , Sansa!”

“Well this is what I had to do – to keep you safe, I had to.”

“You had to?” Arya screamed. “You are a Queen – you didn’t need to marry anyone.”

“I couldn’t let the North burn, Arya-“

“You would have let the North burn,” Arya screamed. “You wished for the South always, and now, the North is all that’ll have you. And now you force Jon to be what, Sansa? You’re plaything? I will not stand here and watch you _ruin_ him.”

“Would you have me give King Aegon and Queen Daenaerys the North? Would you have me give away the Norths freedom, so we would be free? Would you have me trade you like meat at a market to the highest bidder, so that the North might survive against the South? Or would you have me remain married to a Lannister, who would place his children ahead of you and Rickon? What would have had me do, Arya? Please, tell me, because if you think for one _moment_ I wanted this, then you don’t know me.”

Arya ran from the room then, slamming the door to the Queens chambers with a red face and wild hair. Jon cocked a brow at the sight of her, and she glowered at him, before she pulled him by the sleeve of his tunic and forced him into an empty chamber. Jon recognised it as Theon’s, when Theon had been Theon and not the Greyjoy he claimed to be.

“You heard all that, then?” Arya asked, pushing her black hair off her shoulder. 

Jon had heard his sister wore her hair short, but when she had greeted him in the courtyard, her hair was down past her shoulders and it was a mess of mud and dirt, just as it always had been. Her grey eyes were haunting, just as his own, and he wondered how much wolf blood they shared, for it was the wolf look they had and it was the look that Eddard Stark had always stared at with sorrow.

The night before they had come upon Wintefell, Sansa had turned to him and warned him. 

“ _She is not as she once was,”_ Sansa had murmured, her eyes boring into Jon’s. “S _omething happened to her, just as awful things happened to you and I. She’s different from the sister you once knew, Jon.”_

 _“Arya is  the strongest of all of us,”_ Jon had replied, looking away from Sansa. “ _She survived-”_

 _“Just because she still breathes does not mean she survived, Jon,”_ Sansa had shot down, shaking her head as a troubled look came about her. “ _Maester Marwin says she suffers from the past more than any of us, and I can’t have you walking into Winterfell and treating her as you would have before.”_

 _“Arya would not take kindly to being treated differently,”_ Jon had said, shaking his head.

“ _You know little of Arya anymore, Jon,”_ Sansa had snapped then, pursing her lips. “ _You knew a child of summer with a family and future. That girl died with father. I’m not trying to deceive you, or to make you weary – I’m trying to warn you. For when Arya is taken by the past, she will hurt you, and you need to be prepared.”_

But Arya was not as Sansa had explained.

Arya was still Arya; wild, and free, and completely resistant to what the world told her to do.

“She may be a Queen, but gods is she stupid,” Arya pronounced, falling on the bed as she tucked her legs beneath her. She still wore breeches, Jon noticed, and for that, he was grateful. “Do you know what she sent me? She sent me a letter the _day_ after she left saying that she had decreed that she was to marry the heir to the Iron Throne and unite the North, and South again. She couldn’t even face me when she decided she was going to turn into Cersei Lannister and fuck her brother.”

Jon flinched.

“But it’s not ‘brother’, anymore, is it?” Arya said, shaking her head in anger. “It’s _cousin._ I can’t even say that you’re my brother anymore without Sansa correcting me. I thought it was because she was how she always was – a snob that thought you a _half-_ brother. But no, I have to find through a letter that she didn’t correct me because she was a snob – she corrected me because she wanted to marry you."  

Jon sat down, glancing to where Arya sat. _She is like Lyanna,_ he had once heard his Uncle whisper as he watched his youngest daughter with a bow and arrow in her hands. “If it’s any consolation, Arya, she didn’t bother to tell me, either.”

“I know,” Arya said with a nod. “Jory wrote me, said you looked like a wet dog on that dais when Sansa made that speech.” 

“Jory?” Jon questioned. 

“Jorelle Mormont,” Arya explained. “She was there, with her sisters and mother although Lyanna stayed at Bear Island.”

“Lyanna,” Jon repeated, the name strange to hear from Arya’s lips. _But she is not speaking of my mother,_ Jon told himself, _she’s speaking of_ _someone else._ “That’s the one Rickons been writing.”

Arya cocked a brow. “Did Sansa tell you that?”

“Sansa doesn’t tell me anything,” Jon said with a shrug. “I overheard her talking to Lady Mormont.” 

Arya nodded, before her face softened. “I’m so sorry that she did this, Jon.”

“She’s protecting the North,” Jon murmured, his stomach churning as he remembered her whispers that night in the Godswood.  

“ _I know he doesn’t want me,_ ” Sansa had whispered, “ _but he’ll keep us safe, Ghost. He’ll keep Arya and Rickon safe. I know it was selfish of me to take him, to demand him as a Queen, but I need him to protect my home. To protect me_.”

“She’s always protecting the North,” Arya rolled her eyes, lounging on the bed.

“Aye, she’s their Queen and she has to,” Jon said with a shrug. “My brother, and Aunt wanted her to bend the knee. And if she didn’t, if we didn’t marry, they were going rain fire over the North.”

Arya’s brows furrowed. “Truly?”

Jon nodded.

Arya remained silent after that, her grey eyes haunted. “So it wasn’t _her_ that forced you, then?” 

Jon weighed her words up, before he gave a nod. While Sansa had proposed the Union, Sansa was no fool; she knew that the Kinga and Queen in the South had come to Riverrun to conquer, and not to peace. If she hadn’t’ offered them an alliance of blood, Jon doubted that Sansa would have left that meeting a Queen. 

“No,” Jon said, finally. “No, it was … politics.”

“Or your new family,” Arya spat, disgusted. “The dragons.”

“They are not as bad as you may think them to be,” Jon murmured, standing so he crossed the room. “Daenerys is kind, and hates the thought of War. She’s a good woman, and the best player of cyvasse I’ve ever met.”

Arya sat up, her eyes narrowed. “Doubtful. Sansa and I can play cyvasse for days – mayhaps your Aunt should wager a game against one of us.”

Jon chuckled. “I’ll send her your invitation.”

“And what about your brother?” Arya said, shifting uncomfortable.

He had been uncomfortable too, the first time someone had referred to Aegon as his brother. _Aegon is not my brother,_ Jon had wanted to shout, _I know only three brothers, and their names are Robb, Bran and Rickon._

“He tells people he is the better sword,” Jon began, a fond smile on his lips as he thought of Aegon, “but truly he is better with his words. He looks more like my … my father, as well.”

“They say he had blue hair, and called himself Griff,” Arya grumbled. “Does he look like a dragon, now?”

“Aye,” Jon nodded. “Silver hair and all.”

“Pity you missed out,” Arya mumbled, but Jon shook his head.

“No,” He said. “I’m glad I bear the Stark look, for your father once said I looked like you.”

“Why would you want to look like Arya horseface?”

 “I haven’t heard that in years,” Jon laughed, freely, before he held Arya’s face between his thumb and finger. “But you are no horseface, Arya. You look like the North – like your father.” 

“Like your mother,” Arya whispered, shaking her head before something else claimed her thoughts. “You know who used to call me Arya horseface, don’t you?”

Jon nodded. “Sansa’s friend-“ 

“Jeyne was married to the Bolton bastard, and they were told that she was me and no one saved her,” Arya murmured, looking to the ground as she bit hard onto her lip. “When Sansa fought for Winterfell, she demanded to know where Arya was, but of course I wasn’t here. Then they found Jeyne, at the wall, without the tip of her nose. D’you think it a punishment, Jon, from the Gods? For if it was, I want nothing to do with them – not now, and not ever.” 

“A god that would punish someone by raping and tormenting them is no God for me,” Jon murmured, cupping her cheek. “Jeyne Pool did nothing to deserve what happened to her, even if she once called you Arya horseface.”

Arya’s brows furrowed, and those grey eyes of hers Eddard Stark grey eyes – became clouded by talk of the past, before her eyes claimed Jon’s. “Life fell apart when we left Winterfell. Promise me, Jon, that we won’t let it happen again.”

“I promise.”

 

* * *

 

“To the King in the North!”

They drunk their wine, but Sansa never raised her cup. Instead, she smiled and nodded to her people – her eyes trained on her husband.

Sansa wore her smile as warriors wielded their daggers. 

Jon had realised that at Riverrun, on the third day. He had watched her, as his Aunt conversed softly to her and as the musicians played their strings.

 _“Pray tell me of the time the Vale tried to take your head, your grace,”_ Daenerys had asked, an indulgent smile on her lips. “ _My Lord Hand tells me that you recruited Brienne of Tarth as your champion.”_

 _“Aye, I did,”_ Sansa had nodded, her eyes focused on the crowd, “ _but such tales of War would not be appropriate for the dinner table, your grace. I wouldn’t burden you with such stores.”_

 _“It would no burden,”_ Daenerys had insisted, smiling. Jon knew his Aunt was fascinated by the Queen in North; how a girl that none had thought capable had risen above all the rest, and _survived_ with a crown on her head enthralled Daenerys. Daenerys would ask, sometimes, about Sansa – how she had survived such atrocities. Jon knew his Aunt thought Sansa to be like her, but she was not. Sansa was no dragon; she was a wolf, with porcelain skin covering her steel. “ _Truly, the tales of how you became Queen would come better from your lips than anyone else’s.”_

Sansa had turned to Daenerys then, a smile on her lips with a cold gaze. “ _It is not much of a tale, your grace. I killed a man, and the Gods gave me their judgement by granting me freedom. The Vale became free from influence of a man that murdered their liege lord, and became a good friend to me. The Vale has pledged for House Stark, for during my time in the Vale Lord Robin valued my friendship. My friends are how I earned my crown, your grace – for being friendless in a place like Westeros only leads to death.”_

 _“Then it is good we are friends, then_ ,” Daenerys had said, her face hardening _._

Sansa had smiled widely, bewitchingly beautiful. “ _Yes – it is good we are such good friends_.” 

But in the North, Sansa wore no such smile.

Her smile was bright, and beautiful, and free of deception. Unlike the snow outside their walls, Sansa was as warm as the suns smile. As music bounded off the walls, the strings of the lute and the pipes followed the heavy footsteps of the Northern dancers, with yips and shouts from the crowd that watched. It was a hearty thing, a feast in the North.

It lacked courtesies, and the quiet refinery of the feasts in Kings Landing, but Jon would have it no different. The loudness, the shouts, the constant warmth; it screamed home more than Winterfell’s grey walls had. If Jon closed his eyes, he could think it many years past, when his name was still Snow and bastard was still whispered by those around him. 

But it was different from the past feasts at Winterfell.

Lady Stark, and his Lord father – _my Lord Uncle –_ did not sit on the raised dais with their children. Instead, Jon now sat in Eddard Starks seat, with Sansa at his side and what was remaining of House Stark with them. He no longer was relegated at the lowest table, or to the stables, as he had been when the Baratheon King had brought his lions to the gates of Winterfell.

And he was King, with Sansa as his Queen.

“My Queen,” One of her banner man said, raising his cup to her, “I wish to bless you with a _fruitful_ marriage, so you can bless the North with little wolves!” 

The crowd rumbled with laughter, and Jon watched as Sansa laughed, surprised by how the ice had surrounded her as soon as she had come North. It was as if the South was poison to the Queen of Winter, slowly killing her every moment spent away from the snow of the North. When she had been cold, and lifeless in Riverrun, she was warm and brimming with it at Winterfell.

“Mayhaps when I do have my litter, I shall set them upon you, Ser Gerold!” Sansa shot back, to great laugh coming from the men that feasted. “Or maybe I should set my husbands, and sibling’s wolves on you now – to prepare you for the bite of my children to come!”

Jon shifted nervously at the mention of the children that would fill Winterfell, his throat tightening as he spared a glance for Sansa. _Children with raven locks, and Tully eyes,_ Jon thought, _children that looked like Robb, and father._

The night crawled on, and soon, Sansa was standing with her eyes on Rickon. “I’ll be back soon,” Sansa told him as she put her hand on Rickons shoulder, “I’m just going to put him to bed.”

“Surely Osha can do it, Sansa,” Arya said from beside him. “Stay. Enjoy the feast."  

Sansa pursed her lips at the sound of Arya’s voice, and Jon suspected Arya had yet to apologise for how she had yelled at her sister today.

“I’m fine,” Sansa murmured. “I haven’t seen my brother in a full moon, but I shan’t be long, I promise."  

Sansa didn’t return to the Great Hall.

Arya had disappeared an hour after her sister’s disappearance, after she had spotted Winterfell’s blacksmith. Jon watched as his sister strode up to the man, her face pinched in annoyance and her hands crossed over her chest. But the Blacksmith rewarded the Princess with a warm smile, and burning cheeks; something that unnerved Jon. 

It was Podrick Payne, the Master at Arms, that Jon asked.

“Ser Podrick,” Jon began, “have you seen the Queen, at all?”

Ser Podrick nearly stumbled over himself at the sight of his King, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. Jon had become used to the way people looked at him now; at the wonder their eyes conjured when they saw him. He knew what they thought – they thought of dragons, and conquerors, and the Others. They thought of the hero that saved them from the nightmarish figures that had threatened their lives.

They did not truly see Jon.

But not many had; whether it was hero, or bastard, or _King,_ Jon had become accustomed to how people would view him.

“Not since she put Prince Rickon to bed, your grace,” Ser Podrick said. “Mayhaps she retired early.”

Jon nodded, before he turned back to the feast. As they drank, and danced, and sung, Jon felt like an intruder. He wondered if he should seat himself at the lowest table, for maybe he would then feel more comfortable. Deciding against it, Jon walked out into the courtyard, where snow fell lightly and the lights from the castle illuminated the dark path. 

He didn’t know how he found himself at the Crypts, but he did. The domineering gargoyles that stood watch outside had always scared him as a boy. When he and Robb would explore the dark tunnels beneath Winterfell, they would pass the old Kings of Winter – the first Starks – without a glance.

As a boy, he would never look to the statue of Lyanna Stark.

As Jon stared at the entrance of the Crypts, he wondered if he could do it. He wondered if he could stand before the statue of a woman he once thought a stranger, and call her mother. He wondered if he could stare at the gentle, stone face of the fallen Winter Rose, and say he was her son. 

It was Sansa who found him, outside the Crypts.

She was coming from deep inside the tunnels, her face blotchy and lined with fallen tears. Jon was taken aback by the sight of her, tired and full of sorrow, and so unlike the Queen of Ice he had grown used to seeing.

“Jon?” She asked, her voice weary. “What are you doing out here?” 

He opened his mouth to respond, but he couldn’t answer her question; he truly didn’t know.

“Were you going to visit father?” Sansa asked, and Jon felt guilt wrap around him then, suffocating him. He hadn’t even thought of standing before the statue of Eddard Stark, as he should have. Instead, he thought of a woman who had given him life. _But Eddard Stark raised you,_ Jon thought, _Lyanna may have given you life, but Ned Stark allowed you to live. He protected you; called you son, and never asked anything of you, and yet you think of a woman who you do not know?_

Sansa must have seen the look on his face, for her features softened. “Or where you going to visit her, Jon? Were you going to see your mother?”

Jon stared at her, before his eyes found her.

“I can go with you, if you like,” Sansa suggested, her voice soft. “It may be hard to think of, but it’s good to see them.” 

“No,” Jon said, a bit too harshly. Sansa’s face folded in hurt, before she composed herself and nodded.

“Okay then,” Sansa murmured, nodding. “If you have need of me, Jon, don’t be afraid to ask.”

Jon nodded, and Sansa walked past him then, her skirts of grey brushing past his leg. His heart choked on its own beat as she past him, and he wondered how he was going to survive a life with her.

“Sansa?” He asked, suddenly.

Sansa turned, cocking a brow. “Yes?”

“I can’t go in,” He admitted, his voice strangled. “But I will need to, soon. When I do, can you come with me?”

Sansa looked to him, and he thought for a moment that she would deny him. But she smiled, and nodded gently – her eyes stars in the dark and her smile warm in the falling snow.

“Always, Jon,” Sansa said, nodding. “Always.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Tywin Lannister, The Red Woman, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Ilyn Payne, The Mountain, The Hound.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really nervous about this chapter. It will tell you a lot about what the Starks are now like, and I'm really nervous so be gentle on me. Also, hello to all the people that have come from tumblr, and all the people that have read the story full stop. It's a bit nuts, and I don't really understand why it's got so many hits and kudos already but thanks!

**THE LADY OF WINTERFELL**  

“Are you watching, Sansa?”

Sansa smiled brightly, nodding as she returned his wave. “I am, Rickon, I am.” 

Rickon grinned, before turning to face Jon. Sansa felt her smile drop then, as Lady Mormont returned to her side. 

“So like Lord Eddard, and King Robb, my Queen,” Lady Mormont murmured, her eyes trapped on the two that trained. Sansa had thought the same, but she did not breathe life into those thoughts by speaking them. “The image, if I dare say.”

“I’d prefer you not, my lady,” Sansa replied, making sure her voice was soft. “They are Jon, and Rickon – not father, and Robb, and I would hope you share my sentiment.”

Lady Mormont smiled gently at her Queen, knowing to accept the Queens rebuff with ease. “Of course, my Queen. I feel sometimes the past simply catches me off guard.”

Sansa smiled, nodding as she turned her eyes back to Rickon, and Jon. “I know the feeling, Lady Mormont.”

They had been at Winterfell for a fortnight now, and things were beginning to resume to their norm. Or what little norm there could be when their lives had been so upturned by the madness that had existed within their past. 

Sansa had barely spoken to Jon in the weeks past, and it was as she expected. They were the King and Queen in the North, but they were no husband and wife. They spoke at the small council, and ignored each other the rest of the time. Jon had taken to the order of being King like a bird took to the sky. 

The North was a large Kingdom, with demands just as large but even Winterfell had yet to recover from its mutilation. She had been a alone in her crown, for so long now, that having someone lift the heaviness of it from her proved strange. And yet she no longer was tied to her throne, sitting inside all day as she held court. 

Instead, Jon would hold court with her – sometimes leading it, and sometimes simply listening. Sansa had known Jon had once been the Commander of the Nights Watch, before he became a Prince, but she hadn’t thought that he would take to it so. After so long with the crown as her cage, Sansa felt she could breathe again. 

But that was where they ended their communication. In matters of state, they were close and spoke openly with each other. But when it came to the matters of their marriage, they stuck to their own chambers; Sansa dining with Rickon, and Osha, with Arya sometimes joining them, while Jon remained far from her chambers.

Even now, he didn’t look at her. He barely paid her any attention, and Sansa wondered if this is what the songs she had once fixated on spoke of; of marriages between gallant princes and beautiful Queens, where love was foreign and silence was their language.

Sometimes, when Jon spoke to Arya, her sister would say something – would mention her name – and Jon would gaze her way. But those times were few, and far between, and those gazes knew no love. Curiosity, maybe, or even a fondness that Sansa could imagine was in those grey eyes, but there was nothing like love in those eyes of his.

Sansa watched, with bated breath, as Rickon launched his attack on her husband, his footing clumsy and unsure. Jon was kind with him, but he was no loser – Jon had been trained in Winterfell’s training yards and at the Wall. Battle was a language to Jon, a language he had spoken so often that Sansa wondered how he could bear it. 

Jon circled Rickon, and with with a whack to Rickons left foot, the boy was on the ground.

“That was horse shite!” Arya called from gallery, shaking her head. “Rickon, your footing was as bad as a drunk fool with his feet tied together!” 

“Arya!” Sansa reprimanded, looking to where Arya watched the two. “If you are so quick to judge, why don’t you come and fight the King?”

Arya grinned, and Sansa groaned, knowing she was a fool if had really fallen for Arya’s trap. “If I must.”

Arya had apologised, after their quarrel. Sansa had expected an apology within the sennight, but she had not expected an apology within the day. Arya had come before her, her eyes of steel reproachful as she told her she was wrong to question her; wrong to yell at her and cry for her brothers freedom. 

“ _You weren’t wrong,”_ Sansa had murmured as she stared at her sister. “ _I should have told you before I left, and it was wrong of me to leave you not knowing my intentions.”_

 _“I want to kill them,”_ Arya had murmured, her eyes dark. “ _I want to kill them, for forcing you to do this. For forcing Jon to be the King.”_

 _“You can’t kill everyone,”_ Sansa had whispered, shaking her head as she stared into the flames. “ _Peace is too fragile, and murder only brings more murder. When we have a child, it’ll be better between us.”_

 _“He barely looks at you, Sansa, let alone touch you,”_ Arya had murmured. “ _How do you think you’re going to be able to sire a child if he doesn’t even speak to you?"_

Sansa had shrugged. “ _Mother and father didn’t talk, once. And then they loved each other.”_

 _“But could you love him?”_ Arya had asked. “ _Could you love Jon?”_

She hadn’t answered Arya’s question. 

Sansa watched as Arya stole the practice sword from Rickons hands, and Sansa beckoned the boy over to her. 

“No need to sulk,” Sansa said, reproachfully.

Rickon smiled wide then, and rolled his eyes as if to tell her ‘I’m not sulking’.

Sansa turned her eyes back to Arya and Jon, and watched.

They were vicious; a true match. Arya was the water dancer, and Jon was the dragon; she the faceless girl, and he the wolf of the Wall. Sansa watched as they battled, and wondered who would yield first. They were so well matched – too well matched really – that it made Sansa nervous.

Grunts, and groans were heard as marks were made, and false injuries had. It was when Nymeria growled, the sound so loud and vicious that all eyes were turned to her, that Arya drove her wooden sword to Jon’s gut.

“Shame!” The Queen in the North cried, her eyes narrowing as she crossed the training yard with a red face and anger filling her features. “You would stab a man while his back was turned, sister? That’s not honourable.” 

“Honour makes you turn your back,” Arya said as she offered Jon her hand, “and means you die.”

Sansa sighed, shaking her head as she looked between them. Her eyes caught the steel orbs of Jon’s, before she looked away and glared at Arya. “That’s enough, then, before one of you ends up with a splinter.”

Arya grumbled beneath her breath, before a wicked smile overcame her features. “One last spar, Sansa, and then I shall retire.”

Sansa cocked a brow. “You wish to spar the King again?” 

“Nay,” Arya said, cocking a brow as she lifted her sword to point at Sansa. “I’d fight you.”

Sansa laughed nervously, her mind going to a night so long ago when Arya had first returned. It had been a night full of pain, of bruises and gashes made at Arya's hand, and there had been no cocky smile on Arya's lips then. No, it had only be anger - anger, and the past. “I don’t wield a sword, Arya.”

“You have before,” Arya pointed out, and Sansa felt her smile drop at the mention of the past.

Images of a bloodied dagger, and a headless body filled her mind. 

“ _Just die,”_ She had cried as she hacked, again and again and again.

Arya didn’t know of her time in the Vale. Of course Arya knew that she had spent time there, and she had heard the rumours – of how Sansa had suffered through a trial and chose Brienne of Tarth as her champion. But Arya had ever asked Sansa about the truth the stories, and for that Sansa could not love Arya any more than she did.

“In times of necessity,” Sansa said, her throat dry, “and times that I don’t like to think of.”

“C’mon, Sansa, just one time,” Arya begged. “ _Please._ ”

Sansa could not deny Arya then, when her sister looked at her like that. Giving a small nod, Sansa turned to take the practice sword from her husband. He looked at her with narrowed eyes, and wore a mask of confusion.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jon asked, and it was the first time she had heard his voice in a few days. It surprised her, really, how his grey eyes took in her expression as if to ask her if she was telling the truth.

Sansa nodded, warm from his eyes on her. “It shall not be the first time I have wielded a sword.”

Sansa knew she would fall to the ground within the first thirty seconds, but she did not think she would be hit in the face as soon as she turned to face her sister. And it was not wood that hit her skin, but the cold feel of compacted snow. It hit her roughly, and without warning, but that was Arya and Sansa knew she should have expected no less from her wildling of a sister.

Sansa sputtered as the snow seeped into the gaps in her gown, and truly shook as the cold took her. Sansa glared at Arya, who waged battle with snow rather than swords, before she let out a laugh, grabbing some dirtied snow from the gutters of the yard and pelting them in the direction of her sister. 

Arya ducked for cover, but it was not long until she too was covered in snow. Rickon joined in then, pelting his sisters with snow as he begged Osha to help to. But Osha, ever the wildling, looked on with trepidation at the thought of hurting a Queen with her balls of ice.

Sansa’s sides hurt so much from laughing, and her face ached from the smile it wore. Sansa turned, in her heavy gown that was filled with cold, and found Jon watching her. _Join us,_ she wanted to say, _look at me, talk to me._

But he did not.

 

* * *

 

“My Queen, I must speak to you!” 

Sansa turned at the sound of his voice; her eyes meeting the weathered face of the man who had returned her brother to her.

“Ser Davos,” Sansa murmured, her smile freezing as she saw the smuggler. Sansa turned from Maester Marwin, a gentle smile on her lips. “You may leave us, Maester. I fear I haven’t had a chance to speak Ser Davos since my return. The King may need you in the Great Hall – I know he was looking over the plans for construction.”

“My Queen,” The Maester murmured, bowing before he went in the direction of the first keep.

Sansa turned back to Davos then, her lips pursing as she motioned to the godswood. “Would you accompany me to the Godswood, Ser Davos?”

He nodded, awkwardly. “Of course, my Queen.”

In the Godswood, Sansa found silence. Her life was constant noise – screams, and demands, and chatter – but the Godswood was silent and it was her escape. Steam rose from the pools that surrounded the Heart Tree, and red leaves fell to the ground. Sombre faces of the trees met her eyes, and Sansa took a deep breath, savouring the cold air on her tongue.

“My Queen,” Ser Davos began, “I fear you were away far too long.” 

“Aye,” Sansa nodded, gazing at the weir wood. “I had to marry a King, Ser Davos. That takes time.”

“Time he doesn’t have.”

Sansa felt her breath hitch, and she turned to look at him, pursing her lips. “I am well aware of what time Theon Greyjoy has left. He is my prisoner-“ 

“And has been since I brought him to you,” Ser Davos said, his voice low.

Sansa shook her head, suddenly angered. “It is no concern of yours, Ser Davos, with how long the turncloak is kept my prisoner.” 

“My Queen, my place is at Storms End, with my liege Lady,” Ser Davos explained, his wirey eyes meeting hers. “I waited at your command, for his trial but it has been near on a year and still you do not call the Gods to judge him. Instead, you dine with him, and make no move to sentence him, as law requires.”

“I know what law requires, Ser Davos,” Sansa bit out, shaking her head. “I am the maker of it, after all-“ 

“Then you should know better than anyone that the murder of two children requires death,” Ser Davos said, almost impatient. “Even if they weren’t your brothers, they were still someone’s children and he murdered them – burned them and hung them from Winterfell’s walls. I am but a smuggler, my Queen, but I am the Lady of Storm ends smuggler. I am her servant, and if you are not to judge him within the moon, I beg leave so I can travel to Storms end and see Lady Baratheon-”

Sansa turned at the mention of Shireen Baratheon, narrowing her eyes. “You gave me your word, Ser Davos, that you would not leave here until Theon Greyjoy had his trial. I have yet to call it, for the trial of a turn cloak is not as important as the safety of my people. Do you remember why you gave me your word, Ser Davos?”

Ser Davos coloured at the mention of that day, when Sansa Stark had declared Shireen Baratheon Lady of Storms End. 

“Aye, my lady,” Ser Davos confirmed. “I remember.” 

“And so you must remember that your Lady asked you to stay here, until Theon was granted his trial,” Sansa said simply. “I seem to recall that Lady Baratheon had cared for Theon, and had asked you to see that it was fair trial, a just trial. I did not request your presence, but Lady Baratheon deemed you to do your duty here and it is Lady Baratheon who will send Lady Greyjoy to Winterfell.”

Ser Davos frowned, shaking his head. “And is there word of Lady Greyjoy’s travels, my Queen?” 

“Aye,” Sansa nodded. “She rides for Winterfell, under Baratheon guard. She should be here in a moons turn, and then, Ser Davos, we will try Theon Greyjoy.”

“And afterwards, my Queen?”

Sansa turned to Ser Davos, remembering how attentive he had been with Shireen Baratheon. He had looked upon the girl with a kindness that Sansa had not seen for a long time – a kindness that fathers possess for their children.

“Afterwards,” Sansa began, smiling towards him, “you shall be free to return to Storms End, Ser Davos. I wouldn’t want to keep you from Lady Baratheon, and for as often she writes me, asking of you, I doubt I would want to keep her from you. She is a kind Lady, and from what I’ve heard, a very good Lady of Storms End.”

Ser Davos smiled – a small smile, a barely there smile, but it was the happiest Sansa had seen the smuggler look in all the time had spent at Winterfell. “Aye, she is, my Queen. Always has been – she’s got a good mind on her.” 

“I don’t doubt it,” Sansa said. “She will be better to have you at her side, though, I am sure.”

Ser Davos was silent for a moment, before he turned to the Queen in the North. “My Queen, Theon Greyjoy betrayed your family – betrayed your brother. And yet you dine with him. Surely you must want justice?”

“Justice,” Sansa echoed, her eyes moving to the Heart Tree behind them.  

Sansa had seen what justice was; she had seen it delivered many times before. But justice did not belong to everyone – to some, justice is served is an act of war. To others, it is vengeance. Would some call her father’s death justice, for his treachery? Would some call the murder of dragon babes justice, for what their made grandfather had done? Sansa thought justice to be a fickle thing – a thing that belonged in songs, and nowhere else.

 _Justice is dead,_ Sansa thought. _It always has been._

“It may be just to kill Theon Greyjoy,” Sansa agreed, nodding. “It may be justice for his betrayal of my family, and for the children he murdered. And I won’t deny it that sometimes, when I think of what he did, I want to take Ice to his neck. But would it be justice to Asha Greyjoy? Would it be justice to the Iron Islands? You cannot kill a man and call it justice, and not even think of what it could mean for the people you’re trying to protect. For every act of justice, Ser Davos, there is someone calling it an act of war and I have seen too much war to want to incite it.”

“To fear justice is weak, my Queen,” Ser Davos murmured, “and you are not weak.” 

Sansa sighed, her fingers brushing against the weir wood. 

“Aye, I suppose not but I will not hold the trial without Asha Greyjoy. If I am to be a just Queen, a fair Queen, I must hear every testimony I can. I don’t care if they think me weak – I’d rather be weak, and fair, than strong and cruel.”

 _Like Joffrey._

Sansa turned back to Ser Davos then, a sad smile on her lips. “Believe you me, Ser Davos – I have bigger things for my mind to think of than a trial, but I promised him one and the North deserves to see him tried.”

 

* * *

 

“And what plagues you?”

Holding court was not something that her brother had ever been able to do as King. He was fighting battles, and losing a war. _He was betraying you,_ the voice whispers, _for a girl he knew but a night._

“My eldest boy was killed, my Queen,” The woman whispered, “and my husband before that, fighting for the Starks and for the true Queen. But I am left only with daughters now, and another child in my belly. My good brother has thrown me from my Keep, for he says I laid with another and dishonoured my husband, but I swear to you, my Queen, I would _never_.”

“He accuses the child to be another mans?” The Queen in the North asked. 

The hardened face of the Northern woman began to fold in agony, and she fell to the floor, fat sobs escaping her as she held her belly. “I never wanted no child from him, my Queen, but he came to me home and demanded coin I didn’t have. I never knew my husband gambled, milady, never did I know but the man said I either gave him me savings or me body and me body he chose.”

Sansa looked to where Lady Mormont sat, on the lowered dais, and sighed. “What is your name, my Lady?” 

“I am no lady, my Queen, only Beth,” The woman whispered, shaking her head. “I never wanted to dishonour him, my Queen, I promise you but the man said he’d kill me girls and me girls are all I ‘ave left.”

Sansa stood from her throne, and walked down the steps of the dais, bending down to take Beth’s’ hands. “Beth, I am your Queen and I am no charity but you are of the North and a great crime has befallen you. Your husband gambled, and you paid for his sins with abuse. You, and your girls shall have refuge within my walls, and after the babe is born, you shall work for coin and beds.”

“My Queen,” Beth murmured, pressing kisses to Sansa’s hands. “I cannot believe your grace.” 

“What are you best at, Beth?” Sansa asked, cocking a brow. 

“I can mend dresses like none other, my Queen,” Beth said, “and I know how to cook. I can do anything you would have me do.” 

Sansa smiled, nodding. “Then it is done. How many girls do you bring to Winterfell?” 

“Two, my Queen,” Beth murmured, a smile spreading across her lips. “I ‘ave Alis and Lyn, my Queen.”

Sansa turned to Podrick Payne, her Master-at-Arms. “Ser Prodrick, please escort Beth to the living quarters and see to it that she is introduced to Old Nan, so she can see to the arrangements.” 

Podrick nodded, the boy that had helped save Sansa seeming older now than he was when he had gazed upon her in the wood near the Vale. Sansa could remember how wide his eyes had been, as if he had never seen a woman before. 

“You cannot keep taking in whoever comes knocking, your grace,” Alysanne Mormont murmured, her eyes on the woman that left. 

Alysane was a wild woman, who claimed her children to be fathered by a bear, but she was loyal and she had fought for Sansa. She was one of Sansa’s trusted advisors, but on issues of the heart, Sansa knew Alysane thought her too soft. _A woman’s heart,_ Alysane had once claimed, to which Sansa had told her that she found nothing wrong with a woman’s heart. Vengeance, and hatred could be carried by women just as they could by men, but so could love and good. 

“One more woman shall not hurt Winterfell too much,” Sansa murmured as she sat in her throne again, glancing at the empty seat at her side. “My marriage has plumped off the coffers, so it is not something you should worry about, Alys.” 

Jon didn’t attend court today. He was overseeing the reconstruction of the North Gate, and had explained, at the table when they had broken their fast, that he would be amongst the men helping construct the gate. Sansa could easily imagine how he might look – the King of the North, covered in mud and helping his men. It made her smile.

The doors to the Great Hall opened then, surprising Sansa from her throne. Gendry Waters stood tall, his black hair and Baratheon eyes bright. It shone from the rain outside, and his chest heaved, as if he had a great mile. He seemed to have brought the storm inside, for the court rumbled at the sight of Winterfell’s blacksmith.

Sansa stood, shocked as she stared at him. “Ser Gendry?”

His eyes found hers, and she knew, then, that something wasn’t right. “Sansa, come, quickly.”

She hadn’t run so fast in years.

Gendry led her to the training yard, where the rain fell hard and the clouds above cried. Her feet were encased in mud, and her skits dragged heavy as they collected the mud from the puddled ground. Sansa saw Arya first, her sisters form instantly recognisable despite how the heavens cried.

She stood, a sword in her hands, as she held it above her head. And on the ground, buried in the dirt, was their brother. _No,_ Sansa thought, frozen in her spot, _no, no, gods, no._

“Arya!” Sansa yelled, her hand coming to shield her face from the rain. “Arya, what are you doing!?”

But she didn’t respond.

Instead, the wind howled, and the clouds cried, and Arya moved towards their brother, her eyes glazed with the past and demons clawing at her, whispering her name.

 _I cannot lose them,_ Sansa thought, _I cannot lose them now. I promised to protect them._

“Get Jon!” Sansa yelled over the sound of the thunder, running towards where Arya stood.

As soon as she came close to her sister, she heard the familiar words. The prayer that her sister had whispered, the anchor that held her to this plain, came from her lips again. But it was no prayer; the names she whispered were dead, and only served to be ghosts that haunted her.

Arya had always been the strongest of them. She had always been the most wilful; the most Stark. When those girls that Sansa had once thought friends whispered about her sisters wildness, and had giggled behind there hands of her _horse face,_ Arya had told them to say that when she had a sword in her hand. Sansa was sure she would have cried if anyone had ever called her anything less than beautiful, and yet this sister of hers was stronger than the wind, stronger than the winters fury.

Arya was everything Sansa wasn’t, and Sansa was everything Arya wasn’t; but they needed each other.

When Arya was weak, Sansa could be strong; when Sansa cried, Arya could hold her. When Arya flew into a fit of anger, Sansa would be calm – and when fury found Sansa, Arya could hold her back, and whisper ways to bring revenge, without anger clouding her.  

But this thing wasn’t her sister; this faceless apparition that Arya sometimes lost herself to was not the sister Sansa knew.

 “Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Tywin Lannister, The Red Woman, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Ilyn Payne, The Mountain, The Hound,” Arya whispered, her grey eyes not registering Sansa, who stood before her.

“Arya,” Sansa said, her hands coming to her sisters face. “Arya, you’re not there anymore. They’re all dead. We’ve killed them. Arya you’re not there, anymore. You’re here, with me, you’re safe.”

It was not the first time Arya had hit her. 

Sansa and Arya had fought like wolves; hands in hair and fingers in ribs. When Arya had first lost herself, it had been two weeks since she had returned to Winterfell. Sansa had woken, and found her standing over her bed.

“ _This is fathers room,”_ She had said, her eyebrows furrowing. “ _Why are you here?”_

It was then Arya had fallen into the past, and had begun to utter then names. The list of people she wanted to kill; the list of those that needed to die. _Death,_ Sansa could remember thinking as Arya had begun killing her, _my sister is death._

Sansa’s screams had alerted the guards, and they had torn Arya Stark from the Queen in the North. It had taken three men to get Arya from her, and it had taken two hours for Arya to wake from her walking night mare. She had cried, in Sansa’s arms, until the sun had risen and had begged her sister to not send her away.

 _“I could never send you away, Arya,”_ Sansa had whispered. “ _You are my sister.”_

 _“But I could have killed you,”_ Arya had cried. “ _And then you would be gone, like mother, and father, and I would have killed you.”_

 _“But you didn’t,”_ Sansa had murmured. “ _And you won’t.”_

 _“I don’t know what’s happening to me,”_ Arya had whispered, curling into Sansa’s embrace. “ _I don’t know what’s happening.”_

 _“Our minds are our worst enemy,”_ Sansa had whispered. “ _They tell us that ghosts are real and make us see things that are gone. But you’re still Arya, and I’m still Sansa. We have to help each other, okay?”_

The sword came down upon Sansa, and cut through her dress, slicing at the skin of her ribs. _Agony_ spread through her, but Sansa reminded herself as she felt the blood coating her gown that she had felt worse. _A sword is nothing compared to Petyr’s hands,_ Sansa told herself

“Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Tywin Lannister, The Red Woman, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Ilyn Payne, The Mountain, The Hound.”

The sword came down again, and Sansa heard the scream that left her lips. It rang through her ears like the bells of the Sept of Baelor, on that day. Through blurred eyes, she could see the way the blood pooled at her feet, a painting of red and brown at her feet. Sansa looked behind her, to her brother, and his wide eyes. _I can’t let him see his sister kill me,_ she thought, before she looked back to Arya, _I can’t let her kill me._

“Sansa!” She heard someone yell, but their voice was something of a whisper to her now, when she was drowning in pain.

 _“_ Arya, you won’t kill me,” Sansa breathed, her bloodied hands coming to her sisters face as she dragged her eyes away from Rickon and to her. “Arya, it’s Sansa. It’s your sister. You’re not nameless, you’re Arya of House Stark, you’re a wolf of Winterfell. Stay with me, Arya. Stay with me.”

“Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Tywin Lannister, The Red Woman, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Ilyn Payne, The Mountain, The Hound.”

Arya went to hit Sansa again, but Sansa launched herself at her sister – wrapping her in a tight embrace, hissing as Arya lashed out at her again, and again.

“SANSA!”

The voice was louder now, but all Sansa could think of was her sister. “Arya,” She whispered, again, and again. This faceless person could not steal her sister from her again; Arya was Arya, not an assassin or Arry or anyone other than Arya. “Stay with me. Stay with me.”

The last face Sansa Stark saw before she died was Jon Snow’s; running towards her with fear his mask.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You made me your King, didn’t you? You forced me to marry you, you forced me into this, and yet you order me like I am a subject? You can’t marry me, make an equal of me, and then treat me like a bastard, Sansa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what the actual fuck? Guys, this story has gotten bigger than I ever thought it would, and that's because of all of your kind words and kind kudos! Really, I cannot begin to articulate how happy it's making me - I've only just started working full time whilst I'm on break from Uni and let me just say that that full time life is depressing as fuck and reading all your nice comments has been so lovely. 
> 
> Just something I want to address - people who are criticising Jon. Give him a break, guys. He's gone from Bastard, Lord Commander, Prince, King, and that's all within five years. He's lost, and marrying Sansa didn't exactly help him find out who the fuck he is. And just because you can all see how good Sansa is, that does not mean she portrays herself to be - to outsiders, she's cold and can be calculated. Jon is simply reacting to the way she treats him, and the way his emotions are making him feel. Hopefully this chapter will give you a bit more insight into how truly confused, and lost Jon is and hopefully - HOPEFULLY - you will begin to get excited for some Jonsa greatness. Also, I'm just gonna give myself a pat on the back for another update within 24 hours. The next one should be at around the same time, or a few hours later, tomorrow.

**JON SNOW**

“SANSA!”

She had thrown herself in the way of a blade, and had been cut down.

When the blacksmith had first found him, near the broken tower with Maester Marwin, he had barked out a name with such fear that sent Jon running: “Sansa.”

He needn’t say anymore, for Jon’s feet carried him fast and true.  

And then he had seen the three figures in the courtyard, the last Starks. One, small and frightened, on the ground with his arms in front of his face and tears plaguing his cheeks, while the other stood with a sword in her hands and a vicious look on her face. And then there was the last Stark, with blood staining her gown and with a desperation in her eyes. 

The ground where she stood was stained by blood, the same colour of her hair. And her hands, those slender hands which had cupped his cheek and had grasped his fingers, were on Arya’s face – pulling her eyes to hers as she screamed to her. 

“Stay with me,” Sansa was saying, “Stay with me."  

 _What is Arya doing?_ Jon thought, panic consuming him as he ran, _have they been attacked?_  

But there was no attacker in sight save for Arya, who aimed her sword at Sansa and whose eyes seemed unrecognisable. 

“SANSA!” He yelled again, as his chest ached and his wife embraced her sister, pulling her to her own body as blood gushed from her side. 

He reached them, and ripped Sansa from Arya’s arms, his wife falling limp in his arms as his hands were coated by her blood and life left her eyes. 

He heard sobbing then, a wail so agonized that he thought it that of the dead. But it was Arya, who looked at her sister with horrified eyes and a bloodied face, from where her sisters blood had touched her skin. It was the blacksmith that comforted his sister – bringing her to his arms, and whispering her name over, and over again, like a prayer from a monks lips. 

But he couldn’t’ focus on the blacksmith and the princess, not when his wife lay in his arms in a pool of blood. So peaceful was the Queen who bled, it ruined him inside. Screaming for the Maester, Jon bundled his wife in his arms and ran.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t wake for a whole day. 

Milk of the poppy had served its purpose, and had left the Queen in a deep sleep. But Jon could not rid his minds of the image of Maester Marwin cutting her gown from her, and exposing Sansa Stark in a way he hadn’t even been privy to on the night of their wedding, when he had taken her as a husband takes their wife. 

Her skin was a canvas of scars, and brutality; of pain, and the past. Her skin had become the evidence of her brothers battle victories, and of the Lannister’s failures. Her skin, so shredded and tormented, served as a permanent record of how the Lions had treated the wolves. 

When Sansa had sworn that she would never return South, Daenerys had thought it insolence. But as Jon had stared at her bare skin, he knew it not to be disobedience; it was survival.

For how could anyone want to go back to a place where they were beaten, brutalised and bloodied, all for the victories of their brother?

Jon wants to be ill the first time his eyes lay claim to his wifes body, but he can’t. Not when she is bleeding from her side, and the Maester is asking him to hold her down as he began to treat the wounds. 

She had screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and all Jon could do was hold her down. He didn’t know how to comfort her; he didn’t know what to say, or how to say it, or if she would even want him to say it. All he knew was that Sansa was suffering, and he needed to help her. 

And so he held her in his arms, his lips at her ears as he told her of the past. He began with a story of the first time his father had given him a practice sword, as the Maester treats her wounds with salve. And as the Maester takes the needle, and begins to sow her back together, Jon told her of the time they rode through the Godswood, with Robb, so long ago. 

“ _Don’t you remember, Sansa, how Robb had asked you to come riding and you so wanted to say no?”_ He had whispered as she cried. “ _Don’t you remember how he had begged you to come riding, and once you said yes, we spent hours on our ponies? Don’t you remember how Lady Stark scolded us when she found us, so mad that we had spent hours on our horses?”_

Sansa had whimpered in his arms, and had cried, her beautifully scarred face contorting with sorrow as the Maester fixed her wounds. 

Maester Marwin had gone to summon Sansa’s ladies, but Jon had told him to go. 

“ _I’ll dress her,”_ Jon had said, motioning to the door. “ _I’ll stay with her.”_

And so he did.

Jon had rifled through her chest to find a nightgown for her, but instead fines a cloak of red and black, the very same cloak that he had draped on her that night beneath the Heart Tree at Riverrun. The sight of the cloak tugged at something deep within him, but it’s soon forgotten as he finds a nightgown and gently dresses the Queen in it. 

After, Jon settled in a chair near the fire, his eyes taking in the Queens chambers – the chambers of the Lord of Winterfell. He hadn’t been in her chambers in the moon they had been at Winterfell. No, he had not allowed for it; instead simply sending others to give the Queen his messages. 

Jon had thought, when they had first arrived at Winterfell, that the farce of their marriage would be embraced. Jon knew that at Riverrun, they had to consummate the marriage; filled with loveless touches, and clumsy words, and _sadness._ And so he had thought that they while they would rule together, they needn’t pay much attention to each other.

 _Man and wife in name only,_ Jon could recall thinking, _I hope she’s pregnant, so we won’t have to lie with each other again._

But Jon couldn’t deny, even to himself, that lying with Sansa Stark had been unbearably pleasurable. Awkward, and unwanted, but it felt so good.

The Queen in the Norths chambers were not made of ice, as many would think. No, they were filled with warmth; the chambers of a woman who was proud, yet simple. Furs laid on the bed, while tapestry’s of wolves lined the walls. Jon could only recognise one – a tapestry that had had intricate designs of Winterfell sewn into his fabrics. The others, he assumed, were new, yet they all held the same significance. _Stark,_ they screamed. 

By the fire, where he sat, was a table with neat papers strewn over it. Unlike the vanity near the bathtub, hidden behind a dressing screen, the desk had matters of state on it. Petitions, and inquiries, and at one glance Jon could see that his wife did not ignore the pleas of her people.

But it was something else, something so foreign that he had to look at it twice, that caught his attention. It was a drawing – not a particularly good one, but nonetheless it was a drawing done by a child’s hand. From the red stain to the hair of the figure drawn, Jon would say it was Sansa, but he didn’t know who had drawn it. _Rickon, mayhaps,_ Jon thought, but the mere image of his brother taking to a piece of parchment with paints was laughable. 

It was not by his brothers hands, that he was sure. 

On the vanity, there was a simply arrangement of jewels. Rich, and beautiful, indeed, but they were simple – made for practicality rather than extravagance. _Sansa needs no jewels to be beautiful,_ Jon thought then, as he fingered on the necklaces that had been laid across the weirwood table.

There are books, seemingly everywhere – books of politics, and law; of history, and finance. But there are few comedies amongst the somber array of texts, and Jon is glad to see it, for to think of Sansa laughing was the only respite he had from the thoughts that plagued him. 

He didn’t know what had happened to make Arya attack Sansa, but there was nothing that Sansa could have done to have warranted such a reaction. Arya had always been wild, yes, and they had fought like brothers when they were younger; but Arya had always known when she had taken it too far. 

But Arya had held a sword above her siblings heads, and had thought nothing of it.

Sansa’s words haunt him then; the words he thought so stupid were there, taunting him. 

“ _She is not as she once wa_ s. S _omething happened to her, just as awful things happened to you and I. She’s different from the sister you once knew, Jon. Maester Marwin says she suffers from the past more than any of us, and I can’t have you walking into Winterfell and treating her as you would have before.”_  

When Sansa woke, as the sun broke the next morning, it is not his name on her lips; it is Arya’s.

“Arya?” A soft voice called from the bed. 

Jon jolted from the chair he had succumbed to sleep in, blinking away the bleariness of his eyes as he saw Sansa. 

“Sansa,” He breathed, relief flooding him like water dousing a fire.

Sansa blinked, confused. “Jon? What- what are you doing in my chambers?”

Jon thought he could weep then, for Sansa sounded fine. “Don’t you remember? Arya-“

Sansa moved then, her eyes wide and desperate until she let out a cry of pain, her hands coming to her side. Jon crossed the room then, and knelt beside her bed, his hands placing themselves over her own as he heard Ghost padding to her other side, jumping onto the bed. “You were cut twice in the side, but Maester Marwin says the wounds are not threatening. But you mustn’t get them dirty, or take the dressings off without Marwin present.”

Sansa nodded, wincing as she leant back into her pillows. Her face contorted with exhaustion, before her eyes found Jons. “Could you- could you get Arya for me Jon?” 

A shadow came over Jons face, and he shook his head, his jaw locking. “I cannot let her near you, Sansa. Not when she nearly killed you.” 

“Jon,” Sansa breathed, her eyes panicked. “Jon, you’ve not left her alone, have you? This wasn’t her faul-“

"I can't lose another Stark, Sansa!" Jon finally said, his words rushing from him. "I can't lose you, like I lost Robb, and father."

Sansa looked to her hands then, before she asked again. "Where is she, Jon?"  

“She’s with the blacksmith,” Jon explained, trying to hush Sansa’s concerns. Sansa’s face melted into relief, and she nodded, shaking her head as she rested it into her pillows.

“ _Gods_ , she must be a wreck,” Sansa murmured. “Have you seen her?”

Jon shook his head. “I haven’t left here."  

Shock coated Sansa’s features, before she softened – warming beneath his gaze. “It’s not Arya’s’ fault, Jon. It’s not what you think.” 

“She tried to kill you!” It burst from Jon loudly, and unexpectedly – for both Jon and Sansa jumped at the sound of it. “Sansa, she took her sword and- and-“

Sansa grabbed Jon’s trembling hands, and offered him a pained smile. “I didn’t prepare for you this, and for that I’m sorry. I tried telling you that she was different, but when I said that she suffers from the past, I meant that sometimes she still thinks she’s faceless; still thinks she’s there.” 

“I don’t understand,” Jon murmured. “You knew she would attack you?” 

Sansa bit her lip. “She’s done it before, Jon. Maester Murwin calls it visions – like waking dreams. Gendry and I are the only ones who can wake her from them, and even then, it’s dangerous to be near her when she’s like that. But you have to understand Jon, you must, she doesn’t ever intend to hurt us. Shes- they changed her into a person of death when she was always meant to be a person of life. And now, now she suffers and I have to protect my family, Jon. Rickon is wild, and will not listen to any lessons of a Lord – he likes to hunt and spends so much time with Shaggy that sometimes I fear that he’s become him. And Arya, Arya was supposed to be the stronger of us and now I have to protect them. I have to protect Rickon, and Arya.” 

 _From themselves._

_Is that why you married me,_ Jon wants to ask, thinking of how the people of Winterfell had gawked at their Queen being attacked, but had not moved to stop it. _Had she married me so I could protect her from Arya?”_

“I tried to warn you, Jon,” Sansa whispered, but it wasn’t enough. 

“Warn me?” Jon asked, tearing his eyes from her as sorrow consumed him. “You told me she was different, that she had changed- not that she suffered like _this_! Not that she took a sword to your throat and threatened you with death!”

Sansa wilted under the sound of his voice, and as he turned, he could see her tears falling freely. “Please, Jon, just go get her. Bring her to me.” 

“I can’t- I won’t-“ Jon stuttered, his hands coming to fist at his hair as fury consumed him. “She nearly killed you, Sansa! She nearly killed you, and _you knew_ she might.” 

“Get Arya,” Sansa whispered, her voice turning cold. “Or I will send for the guard.” 

Jon turned to her then, Sansa disappearing before him and the Queen in the North replacing her. He slammed his hand against the wall then, shaking his head. “I am your husband, Sansa – not your servant. You made me your King, didn’t you? You forced me to marry you, you forced me into this, and yet you order me like I am a subject? You can’t marry me, make an equal of me, and then treat me like a bastard, Sansa.”

Shock coated Sansa’s features at her husband’s words. “Jon, I-“ 

“I’ll get you Arya,” He whispered, his jaw locking. “But I can’t stay here – not when you look at me with those eyes, not when you make me feel like a bastard again and again and again. I may be one, Sansa, but when I thought of a wife, I thought of a woman who loved me, not a woman who was forced to take me to save her crown.”

She wept, then. 

At his words, she crumbled and he couldn’t even feel guilt for it. It was weeks’ worth of anger, of confusion, of frustration that was pouring of him through one word: _bastard._  

“Winterfell was all I ever wanted,” Jon whispered then, his fists clenching. “I wanted to be Robb, I wanted to be a Stark, I wanted to be the trueborn son of Winterfell. I wanted not to be the bastard your mother scorned; the baseborn disgrace that burdened the walls of my fathers keep. But I couldn’t be, so I left and I became a man with no name and then they killed me. They murdered me, and I was brought _back_.”

Anger consumed him like the flames had, when he had been brought back through whispers and fire. _The Lord of Light,_ she had called it. He called it punishment for his sins. Being brought back to a place where his men had murdered him, released from his vows and no longer wearing black had been hell. 

“I wish I had died that day,” Jon whispered, so tired. “I wish she hadn’t brought me back, so I could be with them. Instead, I’m here – with you. And I don’t know you, Sansa. I don’t know anything about you. All I remember is you left a girl, and came back a Queen and I don’t know how that happened. I want to know, I want to know everything, but every time I think to ask I can’t.” 

Jon rubbed his beard, shaking his head before he turned to look at her. “When you were in Kings Landing, Tyrion said they stripped you, they beat you, they shamed you. When he told me what they had done, I could barely stand, Sansa. To think you had suffered so much, and I hadn’t even spared a thought for you-“ 

“Don’t,” Sansa whispered, shaking her head. 

“- and then he told me of Baelish. Of how he made you call him father, made you change your name and your hair and-“ 

“Stop,” Sansa said, her voice stronger this time. 

Jon felt guilt churn within him at the sight of her ashen face, but he couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of him then – clumsy, and broken. “I fought the Night King, I fought the Others, I became Lord Commander and a Prince, and I couldn’t even keep my own family safe. I couldn’t help you avenge Robb – I couldn’t even ride free of Castle Black because of stupid vows that I made when I was a boy. I don’t even know who I am, Sansa; Snow, Stark, Targeryen, I don’t know.” 

Pride flashed onto Sansa’s face, like lightening from a storm. “You’re Jon Snow, of House Stark and Targaryen. I chose you because I wanted Jon Snow, not some Targreyen Prince. I wanted the boy who I knew – who was good, and fair, and loving – and you still are him. I would be Lady Snow, if they had me choose.” 

Her words were the warmth of a fire in a snow storm; light beneath the dark sky. Her words were everything he had once yearned to hear, and yet they were new, and wonderful, and he didn’t how to respond. He didn’t know whether to weep, or whether to smile – whether to kiss her, for how he had imagined doing so, or whether to thank her.

But instead, his lips kept moving and the truth poured from him like wine from a pitcher. 

“The first time I saw you, Sansa, I thought I had been stabbed again. Seeing you was as painful as being killed, for every time I look at you I think of father, and Robb, and how everything once was. How I couldn’t protect you – how I never had – how I need to.”

“No one can protect me,” Sansa whispered, her hands clenching around her furs as her eyes met his. “I survived because they thought me weak, and powerless. I survived because a man loved my mother so much he thought me her. I survived because I became a Stone, and forgot I was a Stark. I don’t know why I survived, why I live. I’d be happy, dead, I think. Sometimes, when I was in the Mountains, or in Kings Landing, it was so easy to think of how I could fling myself from great heights and be no more. Be with father, and be with Robb.” 

The thought of life without Sansa Stark was the thought of life with no sun, or no moon. To think that she wished the world rid of herself was enough to make Jon wished she could see what she meant to say many. For to think of a world without Sansa Stark was to think of a world without beauty, or kindness. 

“But I could never do it,” Sansa admitted, her voice low. “I could never actually jump. The closest I came was taking a knife to my own face, but I didn’t want to die then – I wanted to live. It’s why I did it.”

Confusion coursed through Jon, before Sansa met his eyes. “I couldn’t ever do it for a few reasons: Rickon, Bran, Arya and you. Jon. I had to survive for you, for my family. And I know you didn’t want me Jon, but if I wanted the pack to survive I had to do it.”

“I never said I didn’t want you,” Jon whispered, and her eyes snapped to his. 

“You-“

“I want to be happy, Sansa,” Jon admitted, then, feeling naked as he bared his truth. “I want to live in Winterfell with you, and have children that look Robb and Arya, but I can’t want that because every time I think of our children, I think of how I will have to explain to them that for their mother to be safe, I had to marry her and rob of her freedom, just as Joffrey had done.” 

Sansa laughed a breathy ghost of a chuckle. “You didn’t rob me of my freedom, Jon. You gave me it.” 

They were silent for a moment, before Sansa looked to him. 

“I want to be happy as well,” Sansa admitted. “I want us to be happy.” 

Jon’s gaze dropped to her hands, and he felt something warm bloom within his chest. “Then we shall.”

 

* * *

 

Arya wore shadows under her eyes as her sister wore her crown.

When he entered her chambers, he found her alone, with her face in Nymeria’s fur and her eyes bloodshot. She had scrambled at the sight of him, before her face had deflated – disgust overcoming her features as she looked to the floor. 

“Arya,” He murmured, not knowing how to talk to her, what to say to her.

“So you know, now,” Arya said, bitterly, as she held onto Nymeria’s fur, “that your sister has lost her mind and sees things that aren’t even there. I didn’t think Sansa had told you – I begged her not to, actually, when she came back.” 

Realisation overcomes him then. “It’s why you hugged her in the courtyard.”

Shame overcomes Arya as tears escape her. “I never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt any of them, but Rickon had scared me – he’d come up behind me and grabbed me and I-I don’t know what happened after that. All I saw was people that were dead, their ghosts grabbing at me and the Kindly man telling me to kill them all. I didn’t know it was Rickon, or Sansa. When Gendry said my name, I came out of it – when I heard Sansa scream, I came out it.” 

He didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t.

“They think me mad,” Arya whispered, putting her sleeve to her mouth. “Do you know what they call me, Jon? They call Sansa the Queen of Winter, and they call me the Mad Maid.”

Arya shook her head, as if shooing the thoughts from her head as she turned back to Jon. “Has she woken, yet? Did she send for me?” 

“Aye,” Jon replied roughly, nodding. “She asked for you.” 

Arya brightened, only to see Jon’s weariness staring at her. “You think I shouldn’t see her?” 

Jon turned from her then, his heart clenching so painfully that he couldn’t bear to look at her. What did it matter of what he thought? Sansa did as she wished, and _nearly got herself killed because of it,_ he thought. 

“I don’t either,” Arya admitted, her voice low. “But every time it happens, she forgives me and I don’t know how.” 

Jon turned to Arya then, cupping her cheeks and shaking his head. “You need help, Arya. You need to get help – you can’t kill everyone; you can’t hurt Sansa every time someone scares you.” 

“And you don’t think I know that?” Arya whispered, tears flowing over her cheeks. “You don’t think I have thought, every day, if I should leave. You don’t think I have thought about how dangerous I am for them? But every time I go to start packing, I … I can’t leave. Winterfell is the only place I have left, and I can’t leave, Jon. Not again.” 

Jon wrapped her in is arms, and held her to his chest. “Don’t you remember, Arya, of what you made me promise? We’re not going to let things fall apart again. We’re not going to leave Winterfell.”

“But you will one day,” Arya murmured, fear infiltrating her voice. “You’re going to King of the South one day, and you’ll leave, just like-“

_Everyone else._

As soon as Arya saw Sansa, propped up in bed, she had dissolved into a fit of sobs.

Jon left then.

Rickon found him, in the stables – a sullen expression on his face and beating at a training dummy with Long claw.

“Is Sansa going to die?”

The question makes him drop his sword, and supress a strangled sob. He didn’t know why he was reacting this way, but then the image of the day prior consumed him again and Jon wondered if he would ever be able to rid himself of the sight of Sansa being mutilated by their sister’s sword.

Jon turned to Rickon, his heart heavy as he shook his head. “No, she’s not going to die.”

Rickon didn’t look like the wildling boy that he was. In that moment, with those wide blue eyes looking up at him, Rickon looked like a child; scared for the safety of a sister who had sooner become a mother to him in the few months that they had been reunited. And yet Rickon had seen the horror of Arya attacking Sansa, and the threat of another family member being taken from him. 

Rickon looked to his feet then, his teeth chewing on his lip. “I thought Arya was gonna kill me.” 

“She wasn’t,” Jon said, too quickly. “She would never.” 

“But she looked lost,” Rickon mumbled. “Osha says she’s sick – that her mind is sick.”

Jon stared at the boy then, and knelt before him, his thumb coming to prop the child’s chin up as he made him stare at him. He felt the overwhelming need to argue that Arya wasn’t sick; that her suffering was to blame, and not her. He wondered, then, how he could have argued with Sansa about his sister’s mind; how he could have thought Arya capable of doing these things with malice. 

Arya was good; Arya was everything good this world had to offer, and he had doubted her. 

“Rickon, Arya suffered when she was taken South. She had to survive, and she had to do awful things to survive. That is why she sees the thing she sees – it’s why she does the things she does,” Jon explained, his hands coming to Rickons arms. “Our suffering makes us who we are, and we are family. We help each other.” 

Rickon nodded. “I know.” 

“Sansa will need help in the next few days,” Jon murmured, “and I think you would do best to help her, don’t you?”

“I could bring her broth,” Rickon decided. “It’s what Sansa does when I’m sick.”

Jon smiled slight, his hand coming to ruffle Rickons hair. “Then let’s go get her some broth.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And when you take his head, do it for Robb.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So last night was a mess of alcohol and regret! It was pissing it down with rain, and we decided that clubbing would be a good idea, but I spent most of the night dancing whilst reading your comments with was very nice! Hope you enjoy this chapter, and if you guys have anything you want to say, your comments brighten my day so don't feel shy about writing anything :)

**SANSA STARK**

 

“I’m very sorry, my Queen, for disturbing you but she was asking after you.” 

Sansa smiled at Ann, shaking her head as she beckoned Mya to her bed. “My darling girl, how are you?”

Mya Stone was but three, and yet she was one of the brightest girls Sansa knew. Her hair was a mess of golden curls, and her eyes were a dazzling grey, the same colour of the Stone she was named for.

“I missed you,” Mya said simply, her eyebrows knitting together as she stared at Sansa. “Where were you?” 

“I fell over, and hurt myself, sweetheart,” Sansa murmured, smoothing Mya’s curls as she pressed a kiss into the halo of her head. 

She was a darling child, truly, and Sansa could remember the moment she first laid eyes on the child. Her mother had been dying, and her father had been a drunk. But then a thought struck her, so brutal and so unfair that she almost wishes she hadn’t worken this morning.

 _Yours would be Mya’s age now,_ the voice whispers, conjuring images of that bloodied bundle and that night of murder.

“But you ‘ave guards,” Mya protested, her little lips puckering. “They not good if they don’t help you. You’re the Queen!”

Sansa’s thoughts were torn form the thoughts of that bundle, and she turned her smile onto Mya, nodding. “I suppose I should get better guards then, eh? Would you be one of my guards, Mya?” 

“No!” Mya giggled. “I’m only three.”

“Three’s almost a woman grown,” Sansa protested, raising her hands and wiggling her fingers in front of Mya’s eyes. “And a gown woman can definitely escape the monster of tickles!”

 _It hurt,_ Sansa thought as she tickled her, feeling the aching of her side flare when she ravaged the little girl with her tickles. But the rich giggles, and the hiccups that came from the toddler was enough to make Sansa ignore the pain. 

The door opened, and Sansa looked over her shoulder, expecting to see Jeyne there. But like the last time she had expected Jeyne, Jon walked in – a sheepish expression on his face. Surprise overtook his features then, and Sansa felt a nervousness begin to tug at her stomach as she realised she hadn’t told him of Mya.

 _You haven’t told him of a great many things,_ that voice whispers again, flooding her with guilt.

 _I shall tell him, one day._ But the day is far from here, and so Sansa smiles at Jon, before resuming where she was tickling Mya.

“Sansa,” He murmured, his eyes on the child at her bed who wriggled and laughed amongst a pile of letters and petitions. “Who’s this?”

Sansa smiled, turning to Mya. “Mya, have I introduced you to the King yet?"  

Mya’s eyes, wide and amazed, shook her head. “No.”

“Well I suppose I must then,” Sansa laughed, before she turned to Jon. “Jon, this is Mya Stone. She is the daughter of a man I was once betrothed to.”

Confusion consumed Jons features, but before he could ask her anything, Mya opened her mouth. “My Papa’s name was Harry, wasn’t it, Aunt Sansa?”

Sansa smiled indulgently. “Yes, my darling, that was his name. Can you remember his House?” 

“Hardyng,” Mya proclaimed proudly, despite how her lips struggled to form the world and stumbled over the pronunciation.

Sansa nodded, before she looked at Jon. “That’s right. Mya is my ward – her mother died in child bed and so I claimed her after her father perished.” 

Jon stood beside the bed, looking almost awkward and out of place as Mya began to chatter on about what she had done in the month that Sansa had been gone. She detailed how Arya had shown her the training yard, and how Rickon had let her pat shaggy dog, to which Sansa became very unnerved about. 

 _The wolf is wild, and aggressive,_ Sansa thought, _if Mya pats him with Rickon not there, she could lose her hand._

“But you know you mustn’t touch Shaggy if Prince Rickon is not around, do you understand?” Sansa stressed. “Shaggy is not just a pup – he is a wolf and he will hurt you if Rickon or I are not with you.” 

“I know, Aunt Sansa,” Mya giggled. “I’m not silly.”

“I know,” Sansa murmured, pressing a kiss to her golden crown. “But the wolves are dangerous, and I don’t want you to lose your hand.”

Mya’s brow puckered. “I couldn’t lose my hand … it’s stuck on.” 

A laugh sprouted from Sansa’s lips, and deep chuckles filled the room – Sansa and Jon alike laughing at Mya’s Stones comment.

“How was court?” Sansa asked as Mya drew, her chubby hand clenched around a chalk.

“Fine,” Jon murmured as he sat, looking to Sansa then. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Sansa echoed, her hand running through Mya’s curls. Sometimes, when Sansa looked at the golden haired girl, she wondered if this is what her children would look like, if life had been different. If life had made her marry Joffrey, or Harrold. Would she give the world children with golden crowns, and fair eyes?

 _I’m glad my children will not be golden haired,_ she thought as her gaze turned to Jon then, thinking of children with dark curls and her mother’s eyes. They would be Stark – Stark, and beautiful, with grey eyes and dark hair, or mayhaps they would take after the Tully’s as her siblings had. _Or maybe silver shall be their crowns, and violet their eyes._

But Sansa wished for a child that looked like Jon; with dark hair, and Stark eyes, and the look of the North about them.

She was eight and ten now, and she had thought, when she was a girl, that she would have a litter of children by the time she would be eight and ten. As a girl, she had thought the age of marriage to be as soon as you flowered, with children following in quick succession. But Sansa had flowered at three, and ten, and she wondered how she could have been a mother when she was still so young. 

Mayhaps the world was not so cruel as to curse her with the burden of a child when she was so young; mayhaps that was one of its blessings that it had given her. For Sansa could not imagine being the mother to a child when she too was still one – could not imagine having to carry, and care for a child during War. 

 _Now it’s times of a peace, and the North needs heirs,_ Sansa thought, _but there is still time yet._

Sansa thought of them then; her children, black haired and blue eyed playing in the Yard. A girl that looked like her father, with grey eyes and black hair, and a boy who had a hint of Tully in him. _There would be many boys_ , Sansa thought, who would be raised alongside Rickon and be taught by Jon had to be men. But she would have daughters too – daughters like Arya, and like mother.

“Truly?” Jon asked, his voice lowering as his gaze returned to the bandages beneath her shift. “Has Maester Marwin changed the bandages today?"  

Sansa nodded. “Aye, he came in after you left this morning.”

Jon had taken to visiting her chambers every morning, to breakfast with her. The first time he had shown up at her door, she had been surprised, but then he had claimed that he needed to break his fast and he knew that she would be lonely, so he had come to her chambers. Sansa would not describe the first encounter as easy – it had been full of silence, and awkwardness, and an unsure reasoning to every word she said.

She knew how to act around a man that ignored her, and spoke only in clipped sentences. She wasn’t’ used to the Jon Snow she now she knew; the man who proclaimed he wanted happiness, and wanted her to be safe. The man that had told her the truth, when the truth was so ugly and so confusing and so painful. 

“I spoke to Ser Davos today,” Jon said, meeting Sansa’s gaze. “You didn’t tell me about Theon.” 

Sansa pursed her lips, looking down to the drawing that Mya was crafting. “No, I didn’t. I thought Tyrion would have – he has been writing me an awful lot about it.” 

Sansa looked up to Jon then, a nervousness in her face. “Are you angry? I didn’t mean to keep it from you, but … but there was not much time to tell you everything.”

“I think there is a lot we have yet to tell each other,” Jon murmured, meeting Sansa’s eyes. “I won’t force you to tell me everything, Sansa, but I am your husband and I am ruling while you’re healing. I need to know these things – you need to tell me them.”

Sansa bit her lip, her eyebrows furrowing. “I haven’t’ had someone to talk to in a long time, Jon. Telling my secrets isn’t exactly a habit I’ve come to keep.”

“And I’m not asking you to tell me them all,” Jon murmured, his eyes moving to Mya Stone. “Just those that affect us.”

 _All of them do._

“Theon Greyjoy was returned to me at the request of Lady Baratheon – Shireen, I think you know of her,” Sansa explained, to which Jon nodded, and replied, “Aye, I do.”

“Theon had been escorting Jeyne Pool to the Wall … to see you,” Sansa murmured, “when they still thought her to be Arya. But when he was brought before Stannis, he decreed that he would burn.”

“And he didn’t?”

Sansa sighed. “Stannis died, and so Theon was saved from the stake. Ser Davos brought him before me when he returned Rickon to me. Lady Baratheon begged for a trial, a fair and just trial, as did Jeyne."  

Sansa shook her head, a breathy laugh escaping her as she thought of the anger she had felt upon their request. The monster that had grown with them – that her father had taken in, and treated like a son, rather than a prisoner, had betrayed her brother and had led to his demise. He didn’t deserve death – he deserved torture.

 _But he has already been tortured,_ she remembered Jeyne murmuring, when Sansa had told her of his anger.

“Asha Greyjoy wrote to me, asking for me to hear her testimonies,” Sansa explained. “It was before I had left for Riverrun, before we met again. I granted her leave to come to Winterfell, so that she would be able to testify for her brother, and in return she would swear fealty to me."  

Jon’s face was an indescribable mess of anger, and frustration. Sansa knew what he was feeling – oh, she had felt it to when she had first seen him. She wanted to take Ice to his neck herself, and rob him of his head just as he had robbed Robbs of his. But she couldn’t; not when she was supposed to be a fair Queen.

“We must kill him,” Jon said, an air of finality to his voice. “Give me Ice, and give me a block, and I will be the one to do it.”

“Aye, you will,” Sansa murmured, glancing down to where her side was bandaged as she laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “I will not be recovered to swing the sword, but no judgement has been made yet, Jon. We must listen to what our people have to say, to what the farmer whose children Theon murdered has to say, to what Asha Greyjoy has to say, before we can kill him.”

Surprise coated Jon’s features, and he stood then, coming closer to her. “Ser Davos told me you have given him his old chambers – that you dine with him on some nights.”

“Aye, I do,” Sansa murmured, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “I talk of our family to him, Jon – I talk of the Starks, and Robb, and our past, and I watch as he suffers. Cruel, I know, but it is the only way I can bear to think him near me. If he is to stay within the walls of Winterfell, he is to know how much I hate what he’s done.” 

Sansa’s hand left his arm then, and a troubled expression finds her. “You didn’t think that I’d forgiven him, did you?” 

Jon chuckled. “Ser Davos implied it, but I told him the Queen of Winter isn’t quick to forget.”

“Sometimes I think I should,” Sansa murmured, looking to him with a quizzical look in her eye and a need to be reassured. “Sometimes I think of Robb, and what he would have done-“

It is painful to think of Robb, even after all this time. Sansa could remember that conversation with Tyrion in the gardens of the Red Keep – how he had offered her essence of nightshade to ease with her nightmares, as if nightshade could do a thing to ease her grief. She could remember, how they told her, as if it was only yesterday that the words had come from her little husbands lips.

“ _Your bother, and mother …”_ He had begun, and Sansa had felt like she was watching her father’s head be taken, again and again.

Her father had been taken, right in front of her – his own sword coated in the blood that once ran through his veins. But her mother, her beautiful, good mother, had been taken miles away; the memory of her so distant that it was hard to conjure. And yet Sansa could remember that her mother had been beautiful – that she wore a crown of scarlet and eyes the colour of the river she grew up near.  

To think of her mother having a knife taken to her throat, and cut to the bone was to wish for death, Sansa could remember thinking. It had been so painful, so utterly and incomprehensibly agonizing, that tears became her companion and sorrow became her language.

To think of her brother, though – of Robb, who was handsome, and strong, and kind – hurt more than the blade of Joffrey’s sword. To think of the auburn haired man who danced with her, who taught Rickon and Bran how to shoot, whose laugh was a more welcome sound than the chimes of a harp, was to think of a future they had been promised, of a future that was never to be.

Sometimes, when the castle slept and night had fallen, Sansa would sit in the room that had been Robbs. His chambers were cold without his presence in them; without the sight of Grey Wind lounging beside the fire, or without the sight of his messy scrawled letters. Now, the rooms had been stripped of anything that Robb had once touched – taking Robb from Winterfell just as they took his life from him.  

“Theon would have been dead already, Sansa,” Jon murmured. “Robb was merciful, yes, but he was not blind. Theon murdered children, sacked Winterfell and betrayed his King – his liege Lord. What he did was treason.”

“I know, I know,” Sansa murmured, nodding. “But sometimes Jeyne talks of him, talks of how sorry he was and how he protected her, and sometimes I want to think there is good still left in him.”

They were silent for a moment, before Jon sighed. “Whatever you decide, I shall support it.”

“Me?” Sansa asked, confused. 

“Are you not to be the judge at the trial?” Jon asked, as equally confused by Sansa’s question.

Sansa shrugged. “I will need someone to help me make the decision – a council of a judges. I have appointed Lady Mormont, and Lord Umber, but I also hope to have a representative from the Riverlands. Ser Robin Ryger rides for Winterfell as we speak. I will need you to be a judge as well, Jon.”

Jon’s head snapped up, and as he analysed the sombre notes to Sansa’s face, he realised the seriousness of the position “Are you sure?”

“You’re the King in the North – my King,” Sansa murmured. “You’re not my consort, you’re my equal. Just as I will be when you become King in the South.”

Jon chuckled. “I hope it isn’t for a long time yet. I have no desire to leave the North, not now.”

 _I have no desire to leave the North._ It was strange, to hear the candour of her husband so freely. They had been silent for so long – had fought conversation for so long – that talking to him made her stomach coil within itself and present a nervousness that she had never expected.

The match had been a political one, yes, but as Jon sat beside her, his dark hair pushed off his face and bound at his neck, Sansa wondered who else could have possibly become her King when Jon existed. Who could have become her husband, when the man that her father had raised lived? Jon was a Stark, through his mother, and he had never not been. To think of a rose sitting beside her, or even a lion for that matter, was a frightening thought indeed.

And for the first time since this match had been though up, Sansa found herself feeling _happy_. 

Sansa smiled. “I’m glad.” 

Something passed over Jon’s face then, an indiscernible expression that consumes his entire face. “But Sansa?”

“Yes?”

“I shall be the one to take his head,” Jon murmured, a harsh expression on his face, “when he is found guilty.”

Sansa had taken the head of Walder Frey, so many moons ago. She had watched as he knelt before her, asking mercy and proclaiming himself as the Lord Paramount of the Trident. She had watched as his withered hands had clutched at his dirtied tunic, and had watched as his rotting teeth glistened beneath the sight of the sun.  

Cutting off Walders Frey’s head had given her relief.

When she brought down her brother’s sword onto the man that had betrayed him, she had smiled. When the blade sliced through his neck, she had smiled. And when she beckoned Nymeria and her wolves from the wood, and watched them feast on his decimated body, she had smiled.

For she had never relief like that of when she cut Walder Frey’s head from his body. 

For she had never relief such as the relief she felt upon destroying House of Frey.

Theon had grown with them. Her father had taken him as a ward, and had treated him with kindness. Her mother gave him rooms, and offered him advice when she could. Her siblings trusted him – thought of him as one of their own – and in return, he betrayed Robb, took their home, and burnt it down.

Sansa cared not for the pain he had suffered, for they had all suffered pain. For all she saw when she dined with Theon was her brothers headless body, his dire wolf sewn onto his neck and her mother’s cut throat. For all she saw when she dined with Theon was the remains of Winterfell – burnt and blackened. For all she saw when she dined with Theon was the two boys he had murdered, and claimed to be her brothers. She saw a great many things when she stared at the boy she had grown up with, but in none of them could she see the good that had once been there.

 _Death will do him well,_ Sansa thought. _In death he shall be free from the pain he suffers, and in death, he shall meet Robb again. And I hope that when he sees Robb, he will know what pain I wake to every day._

Robb had been Jon’s best friend. Separated by only moons in birth, they had been raised as brothers – side by side – red, and black, Stark and Snow. When Robb fell, Jon helped him up. When Jon cried, Robb consoled him. When they fought, they fought as equals – not as a Lord and a Bastard. Jon knew Robb better than he knew himself, better than she knew him, that was for sure. 

Sansa would not deny him the relief she had felt when she cut Walder Frey’s head from his body.

She couldn’t’.

Sansa leaned forward, and captured Jon’s hand in her own – bringing her eyes to meet his. “And when you take his head, do it for Robb.”

 

* * *

 

“Maester Marwin thinks I need to spend more time in the Godswood, thinking,” Arya spat, her eyes narrowed as she lounged on the bed. “I swear, Sansa, if he wasn’t the only Maester within a hundred keeps, I would run Needle through him.”

Sansa chuckled, settling into the chair near the fire. “Mayhaps it is that fascination with running swords through people, Arya, that he was speaking of.”

Arya bit down on her lip, her eyebrows furrowing as Sansa laughed.  

“I was only jesting, Arya,” She murmured, glancing over the recent petition from Winter Town. “Maetser Marwin says he suspects you take on too much of Nymeria, and that’s why you see things.” 

“Horse shit,” Arya spat, leaning forward. “You and Rickon see through the wolves just as much as I do, and you’re not mad.” 

“You’re _not_ mad,” Sansa said, shaking her head. “You’ve just-“

“Suffered?” Arya asked. “Is that what’s happened to me? Because Rickon has suffered too, and he doesn’t have waking dreams.” 

“But I have nightmares every night,” Sansa said, wrapping her robe closer to her skin. “I dream of what they did to me – of what happened to father, and mother, and Robb. I dream of the Vale, and of Kings Landing, and of Wintefell, and I wake up screaming. It’s not different, Arya and if that makes me mad, then I’m mad. We’re all mad.” 

A ghost of a smile fluttered onto Arya’s lips, before she sighed. “Gendry says I try to train my mind, like I trained my body. ‘Says I should try to stop it before it happens – that when I can feel myself going, I should try to think of something else.” 

“That’s a good idea,” Sansa agreed. “Can you feel yourself going into it?”

Arya shrugged. “Sometimes, but it’s not like I can decide for it to not happen. If I could, I would stop it.”

Sansa nodded, taking a sip from her cup before she turned back to Arya. “Gendry Waters is a fine man, Arya.” 

Arya looked up, her cheeks colouring at the mention of Gendry’s name. “Not really – he’s stupid.”

Sansa nodded, taking another sip of her water. “Are you being careful?”

“Sansa!” Arya snapped, anger consuming her face. “I- we’re not-“

“I don’t want you to be hurt, Arya,” Sansa murmured, biting her lip. “I’ll never force you into a marriage – I won’t do it to you. It is a hard life, a life of a bastard. And Gendry Waters should know that more than anyone.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Arya muttered, shaking her head as she stood to leave. “I’m not – _we’re_ not – doing that. You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m not,” Sansa murmured. “I just want you to be safe.”

“Well, I am, so stop asking about it,” Arya snapped, crossing her arms across her chest and looking to the door. “Gendry is just a stupid boy, and we’re not doing anything. I swear it.”

Sansa smiled into her cup. “If you say so, Arya.”

“I do!” Arya snarled, shaking her head in exasperation. “Not everything I say is a lie, Sansa. When I say he’s stupid, and we’re not doing anything, I _mean_ it.”

 _But I see the way your gaze lays with him,_ Sansa thought, watching as those grey eyes of her glared at her.

 “Okay,” Sansa murmured, nodding. “Okay, I believe you.”

 

* * *

 

She dreamt of blood in her mouth, and the dirt beneath her feet. 

The wood was a dark place, but in the night with their eyes, it was illuminated. Trees became towering buildings, and the patter of rabbits in the shrubs caught in her ears; ruffling and alert. 

They take down the elk, but she is the one to take the first bite. The wolves are loyal creatures, but she is their leader – their she wolf – and they wouldn’t eat before her. And so blood fills her mouth, like wine in a cup, as she swallows the taste of fresh flesh. 

It is in the Godswood, that Nymeria rests – blood on her tongue and a belly full of meat.

And it is in the Godswood she hears him.

“ _Sansa …”_ Brans voice whispers, his mouth at her ears. “ _Sansa …”_

 How she wants to weep, and speak to him back. How she wants to beg him to return to Winterfell, where she would gift him a crown and her love. How she wants to hold him in her arms, and see him once more. But she can’t, for she is a wolf now – her lips will not move, and if they do, it is a growl the word hears, rather than her own voice.

“ _… keep them safe … you must promise … keep them safe …”_

And so she promised, as she had every night before.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m so sorry, Sansa. I’m so sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crazy people, you are, with spoiling me so much with kudos and comments! I am writing this story quicker than I thought I would be, so hopefully it should be done within the end of the month. But I doubt that'll be the end of my Jonsa addiction. Only a few people picked up on a pivotal detail in the last chapter, so if you want to take you guess, do it below! Enjoy this chapter!

**JON SNOW**

There was shouting in the Great Hall.

He had gone to Sansa’s room, to break his fast with her, when he had knocked and found her chambers empty. Jeyne had kept her eyes to the floor, nervously twitching beneath his gaze as she had quickly told him that the Queen had taken court in the Great Hall - as there was need for her by her small council. It was then he could hear the shouts, and the commotion – his feet taking him to the Great Hall faster than they should have. But Sansa’s bed was empty, and his mind goes to images of Arya, and swords, and blood, and death. 

He finds them arguing.

Sansa should not be out of her Chambers, but she is dressed as she did before the incident – in a heavy wool dress of blue with a cloak fastened around her shoulders. Jon noticed, though, the way she leaned heavily on her weir wood throne, her hand clasped around one of its branches as she stood before her court. 

Jon had never seen her look so disgusted, as when he had walked in to the Great Hall. Her face of kindness, and warmth that he had so become accustomed to these days past was gone, replaced by a mask of steel and ice.

Knelt before her was a man Jon Snow had not seen in years; a man he had thought upon with hatred, and disgust, and complete agony. A man he had once called brother – a man who had taught him how to drink and how to fight – a man who had been a brother to Robb too, and had let him die. A man who had sworn to keep him safe, and watched as they murdered him. 

Theon Greyjoy knelt at his wife’s feet, his head down and his overgrown hair hiding his face. Nausea rolled through Jon at the sight of him, and anger pumped through him, like water rushing through rapids. He wanted to wrap his hands around his throat, and watch as he sputtered for breath. He wanted to take Long claw from its sheath, and show him just how much he had learnt in the years they had not seen one another. 

But he can’t, because Sansa is there, and she has seen to much bloodshed.

“What say you, then?” Sansa asked, her voice cold. “Why was I brought here?”

He wouldn’t have recognised the girl if he had not seen the curls of auburn that she wore atop her head. She was the same age as Arya, but she had always favoured Sansa’s friends. The daughter of Winterfell’s murdered Master of Arms had once been someone he saw every day, and yet after he left the grey walled castle he hadn’t spared a thought for her.  

Beth Cassel, now Beth Flint, having married a Flint cousin after the war had ended, stood before her, her face ashen and angered. “I seek vengeance for my father. I seek vengeance for Maester Luwin. I seek vengeance for those that this turncloak has murdered, and I will not have the Gods deliver justice when he could ask for a trial by combat.”

“And so you thought to murder him in his sleep?” Sansa questioned, her eyes narrowing as she looked to where the prisoner stood before her, on his knees with his head down. “Theon Greyjoy is my prisoner, and you, Lady Flint, are a friend to Winterfell and yet you sought to steal the Gods justice from them?”

“The justice belongs to me,” Beth spat. “Just as the justice of Lord Frey belonged to you, Sansa.” 

“She is your Queen,” Jon snapped as he walked into the Great Hall, striding up to the dais to where his wife sat. Those that stood within the Great Hall looked to him, bowing as he passed. But it was the sputtering of breath, the coughing and wheezing of the turn cloak that caught Jon’s attention more than anything else 

He could hear his name, whispered, on the monster’s lips.

But he ignored it, for he couldn’t’ afford to kill Theon Greyjoy. 

_Not yet but soon._

“And you would do well to remember that, Lady Flint.” 

Beth shrunk beneath his gaze, but still she remained tall. “My King.”

Jon came to stand beside his wife, his grey eyes meeting hers as he motioned to the throne. Sansa had been leaving heavily against it – a sign of strength that Jon couldn’t understand – for beneath that mask of ice, he saw the flicker of pain on her face as she moved to accommodate him on the dais. _She shouldn’t be out of bed,_ he thought, _Maester Marwin has barely given her clearance for standing, let alone holding court._

“Sit, Sansa – _please_.”

Sansa gave a reluctant nod, before Jon turned back to Beth Flint. “Lady Flint, I have not seen you since I left Winterfell. Please accept my condolences for the loss of your father – he was a great man.”

“Aye, he was,” Beth snapped, before pointing to where Theon knelt. “And he killed him – executed him with no orders from his liege lord after he sacked the castle and betrayed _your_ kin. I have been at Winterfell awaiting his trial for some time now, and yet nothing happens. So I took the matters into my own hands.” 

Jon stepped down from the dais then, coming face to face with Beth as he ignored _him._ He could barely contain the anger – the fury – he felt at seeing the turn cloak again. The boy he had grown with, the boy he had drank with, the boy he had learnt with; _brother_ , they had once called each other. And yet he had stolen Winterfell, and had a hand in Robb’s death. 

 _He deserved pain,_ Jon thought then, _so much pain._

“Lady Flint, your father taught me how to wield a sword,” Jon murmured, “as he did King Robb. There will be justice for him, and for Robb, and for those boys the turn cloak murdered. But it is not for us to decide – it is for the Gods.”

Beth looked to the floor then, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. “I- I need to know when the trial is, your grace. I fear I cannot bear it if he is not judged soon.”

“The Trial shall be in a fortnight, at the arrival of Lady Greyjoy,” Sansa murmured, her voice soft. “Then it shall commence, and justice shall be done.”

Something crossed Beth's face as her husband looked to her, his eyes boring into her face as if he almost begged her to yield. And so she did. 

“I apologise then, my Queen,” Beth said, coming to her knees. “I meant no disrespect – grief ruled me, and I foolishly let it. Please, have mercy.”  

Sansa moved her eyes to Jon, and asked with those eyes of hers what she should do. He could remember the closeness that Sansa had once regarded Beth with. Not as close as Jeyne, but Beth Cassel had always been close on Sansa's heels. Jon sighed, hoping that his wife would see to mercy when the girls actions were simply those ruled by grief. As if she could read the thoughts of his mind, Sansa turned to Beth, and said, “Another mistake like this will not be forgiven, Lady Flint – only my past affection for you has spared you from being sent Winterfell. If I am to hear you ask for mercy again, I shall not grant it.”

“Yes, my Queen,” Beth murmured, nodding.

Jon nodded. “Then you are forgiven, Lady Flint.”

Beth offered them a small smile, before her eyes turned to ice and her smile turned to a snarl as she looked at Theon before striding from the hall.

“Sansa,” Jon murmured, as he turned back to her and offered her his hand. “You should not be walking.”

“I’m fine, Jon,” Sansa murmured, accepting his hand as she was pulled up from the chair. And yet she couldn’t hide the war her face cringed as she was stretched, her sides becoming rigid as Jon helped her down the stairs of the dais. Sansa looked to the guard then, motioning to where the turn cloak knelt. “Take Lord Greyjoy back to his chambers.”

The guards went to grab him, and yet his mouth moved – a small voice coming from the prisoner of Winterfell. “Jon … Sansa … I-”

He said his name as if it meant something to Jon; as if it would ever mean something more that betrayal. As if a word from Theon Greyly could mean anything other than what the daggers of the Nights Watch had. And yet it sounded the same as it had years prior, when they lived in an eternal summer and his family still walked these grey halls. 

Jon couldn’t stop himself then, for the sound of his name on the turn cloaks lips was the sound of every betrayal to House of Stark. The sound of Jon’s name on Theon's lips was the sound of Robbs scream when he was stabbed, the sound of Lady Starks wail when she was told Rickon and Bran were dead, the sound of the way Sansa spoke of her lost family. The sound of his name on Theon’s lips was enough to drive him mad – and mad he went. But it was not the sound of his name on Theon's lips that maddened him so; no, it was the sound of his wife's name - his wife who had suffered so at the hands of his actions - that drove Jon to lose himself. 

It was as if everything slowed, when Jon heard his name on Theon Greyjoy’s lips. Sansa, whose hand was on his arm, was no longer at his side – no, she was behind him and he was barging towards Theon with a vengeance that years past could not satiate.

And then his fist was clenched, and he had swung, his hand connecting to Theon Greyjoy’s face with a crunch.

He could have used his sword, or maybe even his words, for he had so many words to say to this traitor.

But words would not give him the satisfaction of seeing Greyjoy’s blood on his hand, and the pain on his face.

“Don’t you ever say my name again,” Jon spat, wiping his hand on his jerkin. “And if you ever speak my wife's name, not even she will be able to save you from my sword.”

 

* * *

 

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

He was used to being reprimanded for doing the wrong thing.

But Sansa was not reprimanding him – she was speaking in a soft voice, and holding his bloodied hand in hers.

“I know,” Jon murmured, hissing as Sansa applied some salve onto his cuts.

“But thank you,” Sansa murmured, her voice so quiet it was barely detectable.

Jon’s head snapped up, meeting Sansa’s face.  There was a softness in those eyes of hers – where there had once only been an icy wasteland, they now held the beauty of a frozen river, warm for _him._ Jon didn’t know how to feel at the sight of the warmth in her face; at the sight of her slightly flushed cheeks or the sight of the smile that threatened to spill onto her lips.

“You’re happy?” He asked, confounded.

“I have wanted to punch Theon Greyjoy in the face for many moons,” Sansa murmured, a smile breaking onto her lips now. “But I thought it not Queenly.”

He can’t help it then; at the sight of Sansa’s smile, and her teasing words, he laughs, a hearty, relief filled laugh that feels _so good._ Sansa stares at him at he laughs, before she too begins to laugh – her voice soft, and like summer in winter.

“Not Queenly?” Jon says, gasping through his laugh. “I can’t imagine what the Lords and Ladies would say if they saw their Queen throwing a punch at Theon Greyjoy.” 

“Yes, you can,” Sansa laughed, her hand coming to her lips as she began to imitate the accent of one of many Northern Lords. “’My Queen, let the honour befall my son – he would _happily_ punch the turn cloak for you’ or ‘My Queen, men fight battles while women tend to the children – surely punching a traitor should fall to _me_ because _I_ am a man’.”

Jon chuckled, shaking his head. “No man could outstand what you have.”

Sansa laughed, the sound richness to his ears. “I am a match for any man, Jon. But it is a crime to be a born a woman, and I have paid my price.”

“Aye, you are,” Jon said as Sansa resumed her cleaning of his wounds. He watched as her brow puckered, and how her ivory skin flushed beneath his gaze. He lifted his free hand to her face then, and hesitantly stroked the jagged scar that went from the high of her cheek to just below her jaw. “How did this happen?”

“You want to exchange war stories now?” Sansa asked, cocking a brow as he continued to clean. When he didn’t answer her, she raised her eyes – the smile slipping from her lips as she saw his sombreness. Sansa sat back then, pulling her face from his touch as she went to stroke the savaged skin. “You know about my time in the Vale, Jon?”

“Scarcely,” Jon admitted. “I tried asking Tyrion, but he wasn’t very forthcoming.”

Sansa chuckled, shaking her head as she pulled his hand back into her lap and began wrapping it. “Petyr Baelish took me there, after Joffrey died. I thought he brought safety, but really he just brought another cage – a different cage that came with a different name, a different family, a different hair colour. I had always been told I looked like my mother, and it had always been a good thing – but with him it wasn’t. My beauty meant my pain; it meant being forced, being kissed, being … taken by someone who thought I was a ghost. I got sick of being forced, Jon – so I took a dagger to my cheek, and cut to my jaw in the hope that he would finally leave me alone. I thought a scar would separate me from the ghost he was in love with, but instead he pressed a bandage to my face and whispered in my ear, ‘ _Oh Cat, now we both have scars’.”_

The scars that he bore from the daggers of the men of the Nights Watch felt as if they had been ripped open once more, and he was bleeding out. Her words brought with them a pain he hadn’t experienced. He thought he knew pain; oh, how he thought pain to be a lover that so often greeted him. But he knew no pain compared to what her words were.  

The death of his father did not hurt like this. The death of Robb did not hurt like this. The death of Ygritte did not hurt like this.

For this pain did not belong to him; it was all Sansa’s, so prettily sung in a song by her own lips.

Because how could this pain not be greater than any of his own, when it belonged to someone such as her? Someone who was good, and sweet, and kind, and whose lips sung songs of an everlasting summer. Sansa, whose greatest concern when she was a girl was the tidiness of her dresses, carried with her the scars that her pain had created. Sansa, whose touch was filled with warmth, and whose smile felt like the breaking sun.

Her pain was undeserved; pain created by a man who mutilated her under his own touch. And he couldn’t stand it. The thought of her pain tore him apart, limb from limb, and he couldn’t _bear_ it. For he would die a thousand times, if it meant she would never know pain again; he would greet death like an old friend, _but gods don’t touch her_.    

And oh how he hated Petyr Baelish. Oh, how he wanted to butcher him. He wanted to tear him, limb from limb. He wanted to set Ghost on him. He wanted to hear him beg for mercy, and then take his head. He wanted to do it all, and then bring him back – just to do it again.

 _I failed to protect her,_ Jon thought, _she was in the Vale being tortured, and I was at the Wall. She needed me, and I failed._

 _I’m so sorry father._

His pain was a song, then; a song of the death of innocence. He could almost imagine it then – Sansa a mere child, and the lecherous thief that stole her name from her. _She was treated like a ghost, and told that her name was something other than Sansa._

Jon didn’t know how anyone could think of Sansa Stark as anything but Sansa Stark. He knew Lady Catelyn – he knew her ugliness, and had known none of the beauty many spoke of. But he knew that she was a good mother, a good wife, despite what she had been to him. But Sansa … Sansa was everything. Sansa had the oceans as eyes, and a song as a laugh. Sansa had kindness in each finger, and warmth a plenty. Sansa carried her scars as she did her cloak, and yet she still smiled. 

Sansa was nobody but Sansa Stark.

“It’s okay, Jon,” Sansa murmured, her hand coming to grasp his as she squeezed it. She must have seen his inner turmoil, for her eyes were kind and understanding. She reached up to brush a tear away then, _I didn’t know I was crying,_ and offered him a smile, “It’s okay.”

Jon cupped her face then, shaking his head. “I shall never hurt you. Okay? I shall _never_ hurt you, Sansa.”

Sansa let out a rattled breath, and looked to the floor. “I married you, because I knew you wouldn’t.” 

Jon shook his head, his fingers as he pressed a long kiss to her forehead. “I’m so sorry, Sansa. I’m so sorry.”

“As am I.”

 

* * *

 

He left her chambers soon after that, striding to his own.

And when he slammed the door to his own chambers, he soon found his chamber pot and _retched_.

The thought of Sansa being subjected to that monsters hands. The thought of Sansa being bringing a dagger to her face. The thought of Sansa fighting against Petyr Baelish’s body. The thought of Sansa crying.

And so he retched, and retched, and retched.

He had failed – he had not done his duty by Robb, or by Father, or by _Sansa._ He had not protected her, not when she needed it most. And he wants to ask everything of her – he wants her to divulge every ounce of what happened in the Vale, of how she came to find Brienne of Tarth, or how she became Queen, but he _can’t._ Not when she looks at him with sorrow painted on her face, and with pain as the instrument to the song she sung.

 _But you never wrote her,_ a voice whispers, _how could you save her when you didn’t even ride for Winterfell when you found out she was alive?_

Jon could remember, then, how easily he had given up thought of riding to Sansa when he had dined with his Aunt.

“ _We have much to talk about, Nephew,”_ Daenerys had said as she welcomed him to the tent, smiling brightly. “ _To think I was a lone dragon mere moons ago, and now I have my brothers sons! The Gods truly are kind.”_

 _They killed every member of your mad family,_ Jon could recall thinking, looking at the dragon Queen in all her glory. _The gods are not kind._

“ _You have family in the North, yes?”_ Daenerys had asked, offering him wine as Aegon sat. “ _The Starks who raised you – what is left of them?”_

 _“Surely, you know,”_ Jon had muttered, almost spitting the words at her. Daenerys offered words on his family like she offered a traitor to the flames – a mocking tone to her voice. The Starks were traitors, after all – or so Daenerys Targaryen claimed. 

“ _No, I don’t,”_ Daenerys said, shaking her head as she looked to Tyrion. “ _I had other things to concern myself on.”_

 _“She speaks the truth,”_ Tyrion said with a nod. “ _Her grace knows of Lord Starks death at my nephews hands-“_

 _“- a death that he did not deserve, even if he was a traitor,”_ Daenerys said, shaking her head.

“ _He was no traitor,”_ The words had burst from him. “ _He was a good man – better than any man here and he was my **father**.” _

_“Rhaegar Targaryen was your father,”_ Daenerys had said. “ _You’re of fire, not ice.”_

 _“He has as much ice as he has fire, Dany,”_ Aegon had said then. “ _Look at him – he looks as much a dragon as you do a wolf.”_

 _“At least I don’t have blue hair,”_ Jon had murmured, to which Aegon had laughed, motioning to his bluing roots.

“ _You have no idea how much of a bitch that dye was to get out, and even now I still have fucking blue in my hair.”_

 _“While talk of hair is always illuminating, I have a question,”_ The Lord Hand had posed, leaning forward in his chair. “ _Have you heard from your sister?”_

 _“Arya?”_ Jon had asked, thinking to his sword brandishing sister. 

Annoyance crossed Tyrion’s face. “ _Sansa_ – _the Queen in the North_.”   

“ _She’s a Queen?”_ Jon had asked, feeling as if he had been punched. “ _I thought she was- I thought she had been-“_

 _“So you have no word from her?”_ Tyrion had asked, his eyes meeting Daenerys in a concerned glance. “ _She commands near on fifty-thousand men, and you have not bothered to write her?”_

 _I had not even thought of her,_ Jon could remember thinking. 

Daenerys had sighed. “ _I’ll have Tyrion write to her-“_

 _“I shall go to Winterfell,”_ Jon had said then, standing. “ _I shall ride at first light – my sister, she- I need to go to my sister.”_

 _“She is not your sister,”_ Daenerys had snapped. “ _Your only sister died at the hands of Tywin Lannister when she was a mere babe. You shall not ride for Winterfell, not when I have need of you here. If she is a Queen, she should not need a cousin to protect her.”_

 _“I am all she has left,”_ Jon had snarled. “ _My father is dead, and my brothers also gone. I shall ride for Winterfell, and I shall stay there until she has no need of me.”_

Daenerys had stood then, her eyes narrowing as she had stared at him. “ _You would sacrifice the vanquish of the Others for some Ice Queen? For some girl who plays at crowns? Tyrion told me she was a quiet thing – something that I wouldn’t have need to concern myself with. And yet you would leave everything just for a word from Sansa Stark?”_

 _“I would leave everything for less than a word from any Stark,”_ Jon had said then, his eyes narrowing at his Aunt – his Queen. 

“ _Like father, like son then?”_ Daenerys snarled, her violet eyes aflame. “ _You would kill us all for a Stark girl?”_

 _I would not hesitate,_ Jon had thought then, _if it meant I could see her._

 _“You shall never ride for Winterfell,”_ Daenerys had said then, shaking her head. “ _Not until I allow it. And after all, my dear nephew, what word has Sansa Stark sent for you? It seems the Queen in the North has no words for a simple cousin who she once thought a bastard brother.”_

And with those words, Jon had remembered Sansa; how she had spat _base born_ and insisted that he was only her half-brother. Daenerys offered truth in her words, no matter how harsh they may have been – Sansa had not written him, and so his thoughts of riding North were drowned with the thought of a woman who looked like Lady Stark, who would want nothing to do with the Bastard of Winterfell.

So thoughts of Sansa were abandoned, and he focused on the War of the Night.

He wanted to change it all. He wanted for it to be years ago – when they were all here, at Winterfell, and they were _safe_. He wanted for his father to be alive, and for Robb to be in the training yard, taunting him. He would even yearn for Sansa to still scowl at him, and call him _base born_ if it meant that she would know none of the pain that she suffered.

But they would never be able to return to how it was; Eddard Stark had died the moment he travelled, as had Robb. 

When Sansa had told him, her words like a song on a bards lips, of what that creature had done to her, he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He felt as if he was drowning, and he was helpless to stop it. And oh how he wanted to _scream_ about how unfair it all was. How unfair it was that he grew up without a mother, how unfair it was that Sansa how to endure all she had, how unfair it was that Rickon knew no father or mother, how unfair it was that Arya had lost herself. 

The Gods were cruel, and unforgiving, but Jon did not forgive, or forget. He wanted to ask how they could be so cruel – how they could give them every happiness, and then rob them of it, never to be seen again. 

 _But you may have happiness yet,_ he thought, _you have Sansa. You have Winterfell. You have the North._

But then as he thinks of Sansa, with those warm hands and that caring smile – of the way she laughed at him and mocked her Lords, something blooms within him, tight and coiling. He has felt this before, with one other; has felt the way his stomach coiled and twisted like a rope. 

He lets himself think of Ygritte then – with her hair of fire and her crooked teeth. She was not beautiful, not to all that saw her like Sansa was. But there was something about her; the wildness that grew within her, and the sharp tongue that cut like steel, that had consumed him with the same stomach churning feel.

But Sansa was nothing like Ygritte had been – they shared the fire of their hair, but even that was different. Where Ygritte was wild, Sansa was gentle. Where Ygritte was harsh, Sansa was soft spoken. Where Ygritte wielded her weapons, Sansa wielded weapons of her own. And yet for all their differences, steel was still their skin. 

Sansa was the promise of spring, and as Jon thought of her, he thought of how sweet spring could be.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa has a secret. Lady Greyjoy arrives.

**SANSA STARK**

“I was told you were bedridden.”

“I was told you would be in a dress.”

“Aye, well, I was never good with dresses, _your grace,_ ” Asha Greyjoy said, before she rose from her curtsy. The two women seized each other up – a wall of ice between them like the one that separated Westeros from the beyond.

The courtyard was filled, as it should be when welcoming the Lady of a great House, Sansa knew that. Sansa saw the scowls, and the distain on many of the court for having been commanded to greet the befallen Lady of the Iron Islands, and she almost wished she could wear the same mask. She could not begrudge her people for how they hated, for as their Queen she felt their hate just as she felt the cold and oh how she wished to have stayed in her solar and snubbed the Lady of the Iron Islands.

But Sansa could not be Sansa now; she had to be the Queen in the North, and the Queen in the North was fair and just. When the crown adorned her head, Sansa’s thoughts belonged to the North – were ruled by the interests and prosperity of the Kingdom she never wished to have. Only at night, when she lay in bed, did she truly feel like Sansa once more.

Her crown was almost like the brown hair she had worn at the Vale; a disguise that served the same purpose.

 _I am the most powerful woman in the North,_ Sansa thought, _and yet I must play nice with a woman who has stolen so much from me._

She is not as she expected. Sansa had been expecting a large, towering figure, for all she had heard of Asha Greyjoy – instead, she received a woman of small stature, with a scowl on her face and a braid of black curls. She had the same sullen expression her brother used to wear, and the sight of it reminds Sansa too much of a time that was gone – when Theon truly was just a pain, rather than a threat.

Sansa knew why the Lady of the Iron Islands wore such a scowl; she was no fool, and she knew of the hatred the Lady of the Iron Islands had for her. She had sent her to the Stormlands with Lady Baratheon, of course, as a prisoner until she deemed that the heir to the Iron Islands was fit to rule.

Sansa knew that allowing the Lady of the Iron Islands to return home would be like fanning a flame; filling the girl with a freedom that she did not deserve. Sansa knew that she needed to tread carefully, for while the Iron born forces had dwindled and her Uncle ruled the islands by proxy, Asha Greyjoy was still the only leader the Iron born would follow – just as the North had pledged themselves to Sansa, so long ago.

Jon stood by her side, adorned in his dark furs and Stark colours, with his dark hair pulled back by a leather. She too wore furs, and they looked as the King and Queen in the North should. She spared a glance to him, and saw the sombre notes to his face – the way his jaw locked, and the way his grey eyes burned with the flames of his father’s family.

Sansa turned back to Lady Greyjoy, pursing her lips. “Winterfell offers you it’s hospitality, Lady Greyjoy. We hope for your stay to be comfortable, despite the circumstances that you come here.”

Asha seemed to lose her cockiness then, the darkness of her brother’s fate rising to her face. “I wish to see know how my brother fares – I wish to be taken to the cells first.”

“Lord Greyjoy is not kept in the cells, my lady,” Sansa explained, shaking her head. “He is kept in chambers within the Keep. Where he once resided, before his treason.”

Surprise coated Asha’s face, before that sullen mask overcame her then. “Then I shall be taken there. I wish to see my brother now.”

“The Queen thought the men Lady Baratheon leant to escort you would do well with a good feed, and a nice rest,” Jon said, addressing the men behind her. “Winterfell is yours – please eat all you can and rest before you ride South.”

One of them bowed at the King, his expression honoured. “My King, Lady Baratheon spoke highly of you and your Queen. We thank you for your hospitality.” 

“And we thank you with delivering Lady Greyjoy safely,” Sansa said, smiling slightly. “If you see to the Hall, there is food awaiting you.”

They bowed again, and Sansa looked back to Asha.

“Lady Greyjoy, I shall show you to your brother’s chambers but afterwards, I bid you rest. We have much to speak of.”

 

* * *

 

“The people of Winterfell missed your presence tonight, Lady Greyjoy.”

Lady Greyjoy scoffed, turning to her with eyes of anger. “I doubt it – they looked at me like I saw shit on their shoe when I stood in that court yard, and I bet they laughed when they saw my seat empty.”

“Nay, none laughed,” Sansa said, crossing the room to sit down. “I would never allow my people to laugh at a guest in my home."  

For Sansa remembered what it was like, to be laughed at. To be called a wolfs bitch, or a traitors daughter; to have giggles follow her steps and japes made at the expense of her pain. Sansa knew what it was like to have no respect afforded to her, despite her station and title. She knew what it was to live in a place where she was hated, simply for the blood she bore.

And so the North knew that their Queen would not tolerate the disrespect of a fine woman. The North knew that their Queen would not laugh with them, if they made a joke at the expense of someone’s pain.

For Sansa knew what it was to have her heart broken, and then to be mocked for it. For Sansa knew what it felt to carry around grief while others laughed at it. For Sansa knew too well what it was so have to pretend that their laughs meant nothing, that their japes were unheard, and that their comments were ignorant. 

Sansa wondered what it would feel like, if their positions were switched. She almost laughed then; she _knew_ what it felt like. She had been told her young brothers were murdered by Theon Greyjoy, and she had grieved for them for years to come. She had watched her father be sentenced as a traitor, and lose his head for it. Oh, Sansa knew what Asha Greyjoy felt – which is why it hurt her to be near her.

 _I am sentencing her to the grief I carry,_ Sansa thought then, her heart clenching, _how do I differ from Cersei Lannister when I make sisters brotherless?_

Asha turned to her then, her eyes narrowing. “Why did you allow Theon to write to me?” 

It is a question she wasn’t expecting, really, but nonetheless it is a question Sansa knew she was to answer. “When I was kept as a prisoner in Kings Landing, my lady, I was forbidden from writing to my family. While I may hate what Theon has done, and hope that the Gods judge him justly, I would not begrudge him words from a sister.” 

“And yet you would begrudge his head,” Asha snapped, taking a sip from her wine. “There pretty songs you sing, your grace, but I know not to trust the promise of anyone that calls themselves a King.”

“But I am no King,” Sansa said, watching Lady Greyjoy as a hawk does its prey. “And I never asked for this crown – the North gave it to me, just as the Iron Islands gave you yours.” 

“But I don’t wear a crown anymore,” Asha glared at her glass. “You saw to that.” 

“Yes, I did,” Sansa said, her voice strong then as she looked to Lady Greyjoy. “As a Queen, would you have allowed someone who poached your home, who killed your people, who brought such death to your life, to wear a crown of salt?” 

Asha didn’t answer. 

“Yes, I took your crown from you, but you lost it before I came for it, Lady Greyjoy,” Sansa began, her blue eyes piercing into Asha’s. “You were the prisoner of Stannis Baratheon, and you wore chains more than a crown. But you saved his life, I’m told – saved him from their fire.”

“And I would ask the same of you, your grace.”

‘Your grace’ were two words from Asha Greyjoy’s mouth that sounded like poison to Sansa; the way her tongue twisted around them, and spat them out couldn’t betray how Asha truly felt about the Queen of Winter. But Sansa didn’t mind – she cared not if Asha hated her, for she could understand why she would.  

“I have come here to offer my testimonies, yes, but I ask you for …” Asha halted, her eyes on the ground as her jaw locked “… for mercy, your grace.”

Sansa remembered, then, a different time; a different plea for mercy. 

“ _I ask for mercy for my father.”_

_“… they must have lied to him …”_

_“… that as you love me, you do me this kindness, my prince.”_

It seemed so long ago, that she was on her knees and before a golden haired child, for he truly had been a child when he had sat upon that throne. Sansa could remember she thought him beautiful, and gallant, and so like the Princes from her songs, when he was in the throne room.

But that was before the King died; before father, before mother, before Robb.

_Before everything._

And yet she had faith in the mercy that Joffrey had promised her; her heart had soared and she had been relieved when he had promised her it. And then he had made her watch as he had ordered her father’s head to be cut from his body with his own sword, and Sansa knew what the Kings mercy was then.

 _Oh how sweet it would have been,_ Sansa had remembered thinking, _if mercy was true and kind, rather than cruel and wrong._

Sansa had thought so long about what giving mercy to Theon Greyjoy would mean. It would mean that the boy she had grown with – that she had once had a small affection for – would be free to go back to those Islands he had been taken from but a boy. It would mean that another would survive the game of thrones, and that she would not feel so much guilt at the thought of ordering Theon Greyjoy’s head.  

Yes, she wanted him dead, but death was something that was so easily given and something that was so final. Was there redemption in death? Was there mercy in death? What good would it do to her to kill him? _It is not your interests you serve,_ Sansa reminded herself. Theons justice belonged to none, except for those he wronged. The father of the children he murdered deserved justice. Beth Cassel deserved justice. Robb deserved justice.

And so mercy could not be promised.

“I promise to do all I can to ensure that he is treated fairly, and just,” Sansa whispered then, meeting Asha’s eyes. “If I had my choice in the matter, this decision would not be mine. But Theon murdered two children, Asha – two little boys. Where was their mercy, when he hung them from these walls? Where was the mercy for Rodrik Cassel, or Winterfell’s kennel master? I so wish I could promise him mercy, Asha – I wish I could. But there will be a trial, so that his victims may have their justice.”

“Hasn’t he suffered enough?” Asha asked then.

_Haven’t we all?_

“What Ramsay Bolton did to Theon was not justice,” Sansa said, standing then. “It was torture, and I condemn it. But just because he has suffered does not mean he is absolved from his crimes.”

Asha snorted. “And what will judge him? Your tree gods? _We_ don’t follow gods of the trees – we follow the drowned god, and his judgement is the only judgement I will listen to.”

“We are in the North, so the Northern Gods shall judge him,” Sansa said with a nod. “But what is dead may never die, and Theon Greyjoy died a long time ago. If you asked him, I believe he would tell you that he has listened to the judgement of the drowned god just as he listens to the judgement of the gods of old.”

“Theon told me you dine with,” Asha spat. “’Says you talk to him about what he’s done.”

“I do,” Sansa said with a nod, her fingers toying with her gown. “I listen to what he says, what little he does say, and tell him of my siblings.”

“Want to torture him further, then?” Asha asked. “My Queen, I didn’t peg you for the type to revel in torture. I suppose you’re a Snow, now, and Snows are known for their love of all things depraved.” 

Sansa felt her stomach tighten at the insult to her husband’s name, and her eyes narrowed as she stared at Asha. “My husband may have been a Snow, once, but he is nothing like that Bolton bastard. I will not tolerate you speaking ill of my husband’s name.”

Asha laughed. “Don’t worry, your grace. I won’t speak ‘ill’ of Lord Snows name, for the North does that enough for me.”

Sansa’s hands clenched, before she remembered who she was. _I am made of Ice, cold and impenetrable. I am made of steel, harsh and sharp. She does not deserve to see my anger,_ Sansa thought, _but then again, she does not deserve to spit Jon’s old name like a curse._

“The North owes _Lord Snow_ their lives,” Sansa hissed then, stepping forward. “You speak of Snow as if it’s a shame to carry; but there is more shame in murdering children than in having the misfortune of being born a bastard. I’d have thought you would know that, Lady Greyjoy, for you had the misfortune of being born a girl.”

“Thanks for noticing,” Asha snarled. “Here I thought you were interested in my cock.”

Her language does not shake Sansa as it once might have; but Sansa has heard worse, has seen worse, so curses cannot harm her now.

“Being a girl is little different than being a bastard,” Sansa said then. “Men think us weak, and small, but there is nothing weak in being born a girl. We wage wars, yet are told to pray for our men to win the battles for us. We birth boys, who are raised to think themselves better than their sisters. We are told that men were promised the world, and girls are their just delights. You know what it is like to be thought inferior, when you know you’re not and yet you speak my husband’s name as if he should carry his parents shame for his entire life? A shame he does not even truly have, for it is said that Lyanna and Rhaegar were married beneath a heart tree in a Godswood.” 

Sansa sighed, shaking her head as she moved to the door. “The Trial starts within the sennight, Lady Greyjoy and I want nothing more than you to spend your time with your brother. You may hate me, and curse my name for what I may or may not do, but I do not want suffering. I never have.”

“Then you should have thought of that before you insisted on a trial,” Asha muttered, shaking her head. “You could have taken his head, and be done with it – instead, you drew this out and-“ 

“So you could be here,” Sansa said, her brow furrowing, “so you could defend him. So he could have someone to defend him. I delayed his death so that his sister could see him one last time – I will not be someone who robs another sister of her brother from a distance. If Theon is to die, I want you to decide if you are to witness it or not.”

“You think I would want to see you execute my brother?” 

Sansa stilled at the door, looking over her shoulder. “I think you would like the choice, Lady Greyjoy. They executed my father in front of me, but I cannot imagine not seeing it for it meant I was there with him, in his last moments.”

“You know what it’s like to have kin executed,” Asha said, shaking her head, “and yet you subject me to it?”

“Sansa Stark knows what it’s like to have kin executed before her,” Sansa murmured then. “But when I judge your brother, I shall be the Queen in the North and I shall represent those boys Theon murdered, for they were the Norths children and I am the Norths mother now.”

 

* * *

 

She was not only the Norths mother, it seemed.

“You’re sure?” 

“Aye, my Queen, just past two moons, I’d say,” The Maester announced with a broad smile on his lips. “From the thickening of your waist, and your last moon blood, I’d say the child was conceived on the night of your wedding.”

It was only time the child could have been conceived, but Sansa didn’t air that thought.

When she had first felt her breasts begin to ache, and her stomach begin to turn at the smell of quail meat, Sansa had suspected that the seed Jon had spilt within her that night she so often thought of had quickened. But she had never thought children would come so quickly – a blessing, they surely were, but Sansa had not thought that children would come within moons, rather than the years she thought she had to prepare.

As the Maester smiles at her, Sansa found herself thinking back to that night; in the dim lit room where Jon had pronounced their union sad and she had found her heart had iced over like a river in winter. Sansa had trembled at his touch that night, and had forced memories of another man’s hands from her mind, for Jon’s hands were not Petyrs; his touch was not forceful, or painful. It was hesitant, and careful – almost as if he thought her to made of a glass, rather than the ice she had so carefully coated herself in.  

It hadn’t been filled with love, or intimacy, as Sansa had once thought her wedding night would be. Instead, it was filled with clumsiness and endurance – with two unwilling participants who knew that the rice of not consummating their marriage would mean that it would be torn away from them.

And as Sansa thought of that night, that night she had spent so long thinking of, she cannot help but wonder what it would be like if Jon was to kiss her as men kissed the women they loved; if he was to touch her as husbands touched their wives. A shrill excitement went through Sansa, so foreign and so strange, that she had to combat it quickly – pushing it away from her mind as he hand drifted to her belly.

That night had been sad, yes, but they had created something together; a life that would grow within Winterfell and be _theirs._ The thought of a child that looked like her father, her mother – that looked like Robb, Arya, Rickon and Bran – that looked like _Jon_ was enough to make her want to weep. No longer would the rooms at Winterfell feel so cold, when a child would bring such warmth back into their lives.

 _A babe,_ Sansa thought, clutching at her stomach, _a babe born of Winter and of Wolves._

And then, so suddenly, her mind goes to the last time she had felt such things. 

She thought of the last time her waist had thickened, and her stomach had expanded. She thought of how her small hands had cradled her bump, and how she had planned to call her babe Arya, for she knew it to be a girl. He had been away then, away from the Vale and in the Capitol, and she had been able to keep the babe a secret.

But when he came back to the Vale, he had taken one look at her belly and had forced her mouth open before pouring poison down her throat.

She could remember how she thrashed in his arms, how her lips tasted salt and how her thighs had been coated in blood. A perfect babe, so small and tiny, forced from her with no wail of it's own.  _A girl it was_ _meant to be,_ _but never was._

And poison it did; it poisoned the babe she was to call Arya, it poisoned the mind she had tried to protect, and it poisoned what was left of her sanity.

That was the night she had killed Petyr Baelish.

 _But you will not lose this one,_ Sansa told herself, smoothing her gown over her flat stomach, _this babe shall be yours and Jon’s, and yours and Jon’s alone. He shall be loved by the North, and he shall be raised in Winterfell, as you both were._

 _Jon will never allow any harm to come to him,_ Sansa thought, _he couldn’t’._

She did not realise she was crying until Maester Marwin offered her a handkerchief to wipe her face with.

“It is a blessing, my Queen,” Maester Marwin assured her, “a blessing that will bring life back to the North, and be celebrated by all seven of these Kingdoms.”

“Not yet,” Sansa murmured, shaking her head as she thought of the babe that grew inside her. “None shall know until it can be seen. I trust your discretion-“

“Of course, my Queen,” Maester Marwin said with a nod. “I will not breathe a word to none, but I should ask that we have weekly visits to ensure that the babe is growing strong. With the stress your body has been under after your … attack, it is safe to say that we must make sure that the child grows normally." 

Sansa nodded, her heart clenching at the thought that her babe could have suffered as she had suffered at the hands of Arya.  

“And I trust you shan’t tell my husband,” Sansa said quietly, looking Maester Marwin in his grey eyes. “It shall be from my lips he is to find out he is to become a father – not yours. Do you understand?” 

“As I said, my Queen, none shall know of your child until you decide they shall,” He said with a smile, before he began to talk of things that she needed to do at once; what vegetables must be ordered so that the babe can be sure to be a boy. 

Sansa left the Masters tower with wide eyes, and with a clouded mind. She passed her people as they went about their busy days, the markets having come to the courtyard for the morning trade. They looked at her in awe, the sight of their Queen fresh faced and dressed in furs was enough for any man to fall to his knees.

But Sansa took no notice of them – offering them a smile when she could. For her mind saw things that they didn’t.

Her mind saw the glass gardens, where she would take her babe in the mornings on warm days so they could see the flowers together. Her mind saw the training yard, where her babe would be trained by Podrik and Arya and Jon alike, irrespective of whether they were born a boy or a girl. Her mind saw the walls where her babe would climb, so like Bran had done when he was but a boy. Her mind saw the entrance to the Godswood, where she would bring her babe for the blessings of the Gods.

Her mind saw her life, then, and how it would be; her mind saw Jon, strapping, tall and dark in his furs as he cradled a small bundle in his arms, with that smile of his that she so rarely saw. Her mind saw how Arya and Rickon would fuss over the babe, and how they would argue over who would be named it’s protector.

Her mind saw a great many things – of promised spring and of a well longed for summer. But she knew her babe would be a babe of a Winter; a true Stark child that would know the North.  

She saw Jon, then, his cloak wrapped around his shoulders and his face pulled in a serious expression as he spoke to the new kennel master, Jaq.

“Jon!” Sansa called, beginning to stride over to him. 

He looked surprised to see her – to hear the breathy tone to her voice and to see the smile that alit her face when she saw him. And yet he greeted her as he always did; with warm eyes, and with a small smile.

“Sansa,” He said, surprised by his wife’s abrupt call. “I thought you were to meet with the Maester today?”

“I already have,” Sansa murmured, almost brimming with an excitement – excitement at the images her mind had conjured, excitement at what would be. 

Concern flickered across Jon’s face, and he dropped his voice, stepping away from the kennel master. “Is everything alright?” 

“It’s fine,” Sansa assured. “I’m fine. I- I just-“ 

Suddenly, Sansa didn’t know what she wanted to say; how she wanted to tell him. And then the image of that bloody bundle, and the poison that burnt her throat filled her mind, and a voice whispers, _protect the babe from him. You must protect the babe from them all._

 _But this is Jon,_ Sansa thought, _not Petyr._

Sansa stepped towards Jon then, her lips coming to his ear. “Come to my chambers tonight.” 

And with that, Sansa left Jon and walked back to the Keep, a smile on her face and a secret growing within her.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring is coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JONSA MADNESS IN THIS CHAPTER! I did warn you. Like truly I warned you. Also just on a side note, listen to the score from the Tower of Joy scene while reading this - I have been and it's the best piece of music to listen to while reading it. Another little side note: I want you guys to give me your opinion on what should happen to Theon Greyjoy. He is such a polarising character, and I want to know what you guys think. I have the whole day off tomorrow from work so hopefully I should get back on top of chapters and won't have to be writing them every night after work haha. I'm worried this'll be a bit cheesy, but enjoy it nevertheless!

**JON SNOW**

He found her in her chambers, with Ghosts head in her lap and her fingers threaded through his white fur.

When he had seen her that morning, bright eyed and with a wide smile, he had thought he had seen a ghost of a girl he once knew. Jon thought, for just a moment, that it was years ago, when Sansa wore silks of the South in spite of her mother’s wishes, and when she gave her smile to all who would pay her a compliment.  He thought, for a simple minute moment, that Sansa was not the Queen, but the girl that he had known a long time ago.

But she was not the girl he once knew; Sansa didn’t dress in Southern silks any more, or pile her hair above her head in the way they once did in the South. Instead, she wore her hair in a Northern braid – a practical leather tied to keep it intact. Daenerys had once told him that Dothraki warriors wore their uncut hair in braids. To lose a battle was to lose the braid, and so those that bore the longest braid were the ones who should be most feared.  

 _If Sansa were amongst the Dothraki, she would be the most fearsome creature,_ Jon had thought, watching as the aflame braid swung at her waist as she had walked.

But the smile on her face couldn’t be called fearsome; beautiful, mayhaps, or even bewitching, for Sansa seemed to bewitch everything her fingers touched. He would happily be a victim to her spells, if it meant that she would gift him with a smile such as the smile she showered him with that morning. For all her ice, there was such fire that whenever she allowed her coldness to thaw he would be struck by how bright her flame burnt. For Sansa was the moon, lighting the long night and he was blind without her brightness. 

Jon wore his nervousness like armour, when he knocked on her chamber door and heard her voice beckoning him to enter. When he had seen her in the courtyard, and she had pressed her lips to his ears, and whispered that he should come to her chambers, he had felt something strange stirring within him – something he had never thought would happen with Sansa.

For beneath the guilt, and beneath the hesitation, there was a _burn_ for her.

He had never felt like a Targaryen; not when he had awoken from death, reborn from the flames or even when Rhaegal had bowed his head, and chosen him. He had not felt like a Targaryen when they sacked Kings Landing, or when they had fought beyond the wall. He had never felt like a dragon, not when he was the black to his brothers silver, not when he was snow to his Aunts fire.

But when he saw Sansa, he felt like a dragon; burning with a fire for her.

When she saw him, she smiled; as bright as the the sun they very rarely saw and Jon felt warm then, despite the snow that fell heavily outside. 

“Aye, so this is where he’s been,” Jon said, looking to Ghost who barely moved at the sight of his master. “He seems to follow you around everywhere, now.”

Sansa shared a look with the wolf, and laughed, running her hand through his fur. “Well, I suppose it must have something to do with the meat I feed him.” 

“He loves you,” Jon said simply, looking at his wolf. “He always has, I’d say.”

Sansa sighed, running her hand through Ghosts fur. “I think he knows how lonely I am without Lady – they all do, really. Gods knows Shaggy is not as wild as he is when I am around, and Nymeria follows me whenever Arya tells her to – and when she doesn’t. I fear I monopolize her, sometimes.” 

“But I doubt Arya would want Nymeria to be anywhere else,” Jon said simply. “Nymeria spent so long away from Arya that I don’t think Arya minds that she’s not constantly on her heels.”

“I know,” Sansa murmured, before she met Jon’s eyes. Standing, Sansa crossed to where Jon stood and smiled – her fingers lightly feathering the fur of Jon’s cloak. “I want to give you something.” 

“Oh?” Jon asked, cocking a brow. 

Sansa went to her chest then, and pulled a great, thick cloak and furs from it. It was a worn black colour, and Jon thought it similar to the ones he had grown with. It was only when he saw the embroidered dire wolf in the leather that he felt his heart choke in his chest.

“This was-“ 

“- _his_ ,” Jon said, his voice strangled.

Sansa nodded, lifting the cloak to her nose and inhaling what was left of Eddard Stark. “Sometimes I pretend it still smells of him – still smells of pine, and smoke, but father left it here in Winterfell when he rode South. The maids must have had it washed, and stored away, and it was only when I took Winterfell that they brought it to me. I thought to give it to Bran, but …”

“It should be Rickons, then,” Jon said, his hand coming to lightly touch the furs. How many times had he seen Eddard Stark dressed in this, and had thought him so strong, that father of his. How many times had he stared at his father as a boy and wished he would look at him like he looked at Robb. But when Eddard Stark did look at him, there would be a note of sadness in his eyes; a sadness Jon had always confused with guilt. But Jon knew it to be sadness know – a grief that Eddard carried with him and called his bastard son Snow. “Rickon should have it – he’s Lord Starks son-”

“It’s yours,” Sansa murmured, pressing it into his hands. “It’s always been yours, Jon.”

“No, Sansa, _no_ ,” Jon began, shaking his head as his wife wrapped her hands around his neck as she unfastened his cloak. Her face was so close to his that he could feel her breath fanning onto his face, her lips an inch from his. _How sweet it would be to claim those lips as mine,_ he thought, wondering what it would feel to kiss Sansa Stark. Jon Snow imagined kissing Sansa Stark to be like kissing the sun; a touch that would surely burn him. 

But he was a dragon, wasn’t he? He was supposed to burn.

He knew he wanted her, then. He wanted to kiss her, and pull her to him, and to feel her body against his. He wanted his name to be on her lips, and he wanted her smile to belong to him, and only him. He wanted to press his lips to her scars, to hold her beside the fire, to be with her in a way that only husbands knew their wives.

Jon Snow wanted Sansa Stark, and that terrified him.

Sansa unclasped his cloak then, pulling the heavy fur trimmed cloak from his shoulders and folding the fabric gently over one of the seats. She pulled her father’s cloak up then, and reached around his neck then, fastening the cloak that had once been the Lord of Winterfell’s around his cloak. _Father,_ Jon thought as he stared at Sansa, his heart hammering in his chest, _I’m sorry._

“It suits you,” Sansa murmured as she stepped back, smiling as her fingers grazed his cheek. “That first day I saw you, when I said your name and held your face and ignore the Queen, stupidly, I thought you were him. But you’re not – your smiles different, and your jaw, and the way your laugh sounds, it’s different. They say that when Rhaegar smiled, people fell in love with him and I wonder if that’s what you inherited from him.”

“My smile?”

“When I so rarely see it,” Sansa said with a chuckle, biting her lip before her hand dropped to the fur that trimmed the cloak. “Do you want to see them? Do you want to see _him_?”

Jon wanted to say no. Jon wanted to refuse.

But with Eddard Stark’s cloak around his shoulders, he knows he must stop being the child he wanted to be and be the man his father had raised. 

“Okay.”

The Crypts are not a place that happiness grows. 

Winterfell had always been his home; it had been the place he was raised, the place his family lived, the place he belonged to. And yet the Crypts had always frightened Jon – even as a boy when he and Robb would run through the aisles, looking for the King that knelt and the wolves that followed him. 

Still, they frightened him.

They were a dark, and lonely place, but it was a place that reminded him so much of a home. As Sansa and he descended down the stairs, Jon knew that one day, a day so far from here, he would be laid to rest here. _I belong here_ , Jon thought then, _beneath Winterfell with my family._

Robb’s is the first crypt they visit.

It is not what Jon had been expecting, his brothers resting place. Standing in front of him, made of stone, was his brother. If Jon coloured the stone, he could almost see the auburn tint to the curls beneath his stone crown. They stood at the same height, but Jon could not help but feel small as he stood in front of the stone emulation of his brother.

In his hands stood the sword that Robb had been gifted on his name day. Jon can still remembered how their Lord father had smiled proudly at his trueborn son, before he had placed the sword in his sons hands. Jon had been jealous for weeks, had been angry for weeks, and yet as he stared at the sword, he could not imagine the sword being in any other hands.

Jon felt a hand on his face then, wiping away the droplets of salt that had marred his cheeks. He hadn’t realised he had been crying, but Sansa did. 

“I know,” Sansa murmured with a nod. “I know." 

And she doesn’t say anything else, for she didn’t need to.

They knew each others pain, and as they stood together, Jon felt stronger for it.

“He was too young for what they did to him,” Jon murmured, his voice strangled. “Too good.”

“We were all so young,” Sansa whispered, her face illuminated by the fire of the lantern. “Sometimes, I think of him, and I wonder how it could have happened to _him._ He was the best at everything – he was the strongest of us, and he was the one that they killed. I don’t understand how they killed him, and yet I’m still here? How did he die, and I lived? How did- why did the Gods decide it just to take him away, and to leave me here, without him?”

“The Gods can go fuck themselves if they think it just to take someone like Robb away,” Jon whispered then, his hand coming to cup Sansa’s cheek as he brought her tear streaked face to his. “I worship nothing that takes my family from me. I worship nothing that killed my brother, or my father, or that hurt you, or Arya, or Rickon.”

Sansa placed her hand atop Jon’s, and squeezed his callused skin. “The gods can play their games for all I care – I have you, and Arya, and Rickon, and we’re a family. I won’t let them take it from me – not again.”

Her eyes left Jon’s then, and descended down the aisles, and Jon knew where they sat. “He’s there, then?”

Sansa dragged her eyes from down the aisle, and bit her lip. “We do not need to see him, if you don’t want it.”

“He raised me,” Jon murmured, trying to summon whatever bravery he had within him. “I can face where he rests.”

Seeing Eddard Stark made of stone was the most painful thing Jon had ever felt. 

Seeing the man who comforted him when he had nights of terror as a boy as nothing more than carving in stone was enough to make Jon close his eyes, and _cry._ And cry he did. Jon cried at the thought of his father, being pushed to his knees and called a traitor. Jon cried at the thought of his father, who had forsaken honour for the promise of a woman he loved. Jon cried at the thought of his father, who was not his father at all, but had never thought Jon anything less than a son.  

He felt arms around him then, and suddenly he was inhaling Sansa’s scent; the smell of winter in her hair, and lavender on her skin making him wilt into her embrace. He clutched at Sansa’s cloak, and pulled her to him, his tears wetting the skin of her neck as he let out a loud sob. 

Eddard Stark had been everything good the world had to offer, and the world had forced him onto his knees and cut his head off. Eddard Stark had worn the dishonour of bearing a bastard proudly when he needn’t to, raising the child of his beloved sister as his own despite the hatred that it earned from his wife. Eddard Stark had shown him of what it meant to be a Stark, even if he was a Snow.

“ _This is my father, Rickard,”_ Ned had said one morning, while Jon sat on his lap in his solar. “ _Your grandfather, Jon.”_

Jon had lifted his small head – a boy of but five. _“My true grandfather? But I am a bastard – a bastard doesn’t have family.”_

 _“Who told you that?”_ Ned had asked, angered as he had gathered Jon into his arms. “ _Was it Lady Catelyn, Jon? Did my wife say that?”_

Jon had shaken his head, and had lied, for he didn’t want to get Lady Stark in trouble with his father. “ _No, father. I just heard it, is all.”_

 _“You are of my blood, Jon,”_ Ned had said, his hand grasping Jon’s chin. “ _Your grandfather was Rickard Stark, and you are just as much a Stark as Robb is, understand?”_

_“But I am a Snow-“_

_“Aye, you are,”_ Ned had nodded. “ _But you are a Snow of House Stark. I am your father, Jon – just as I am Robbs. Your name could never promise you shame, Jon – only you, yourself, can bring shame to your name.”_

“I should have been there,” Jon croaked, as Sansa smoothed his hair with her hands.

“No,” Sansa whispered, shaking her head. “They would have killed you, and where would I be if I didn’t have you now?”

Jon pulled back then, staring at Sansa as she shook her head. “If you had been in Kings Landing, they would have dragged you through the streets and I would have been truly alone." 

“I could have taken you from there,” Jon whispered, brushing a tear from her face. “I could have helped-“

“It’s easy, to speak of what you could have done when you look back with new eyes,” Sansa murmured, her eyes pulling from his to her father’s stone face. “’What would have happened if I didn’t ask to be betrothed to Joffrey’? ‘What would have happened if I had never told them of father’s intentions’? ‘What would have happened if they had granted mercy’? To think of what could have been leads to madness, Jon, and I can’t have you mad.”

“They say dragons have mad blood,” Jon whispered then, and Sansa turned to him, her eyes wide.

“But you are a wolf as well,” Sansa said, shaking her head. “You’re not all dragon, like they are – you’re of your mother’s line, Jon, and they say she was as wild as Nymeria.” 

She grabbed his hand then, and pulled him further down the aisles before they stood in front of the stone statue of the woman that gave him life, and the woman he had killed to gain it.

Lyanna Stark was beautiful, even when carved in stone. At her feet laid a wreath of winter roses, and in her stone hand, outstretched, was a feather. She was a stranger made of a stone, even if she is said to have birthed him; said to have made his father promise with her dying breath to protect him.

“Lyanna,” Sansa whispered then, her face holding some wonder to it. “I always thought her to be some sort of myth, made of winter roses and tragedy.”

She’s silent for a moment, before she turned to Jon. 

“You look like her,” Sansa decided, and Jon felt his stomach churn painfully. “It’s your nose, I think. The way it points is exactly like hers.”

Jon looked to the ground, his throat feeling tight.

“We should leave.”

Sansa turned to him then, surprised. But the surprise melted from her face as she saw the pain that was etched onto his, and she gave a nod, leading them back the way they came.

They stood in front of Eddard again, simply staring at the face of the man who had raised them both.

It startled him when Sansa spoke again.

“I’m scared, Jon,” Sansa whispered, her voice trembling. “I’m so scared.”

She stepped to her father then, her hand raising to cup his stone cheek. “You know he made me call him father, don’t you? You know Petyr called me Alayne and made me say I was a Stone – to tell him that I was a bastard,” Sansa shook her head, her eyes boring into the eyes of her departed father, “and I did as he said. I called _him_ father, and forgot I was a Stark. I thought it would keep me safe – I thought being his daughter would keep me safe, he told me it would keep me safe.” 

“But not even being his daughter kept me safe from him,” Sansa whispered, her voice low. She turned back to Jon then, who watched her with wide eyes. He hadn’t expected Sansa to talk of these things, not for many moons to come. “I need to tell you something Jon, and I need you to not hate me.” 

“I could never hate you, Sansa,” Jon said then, his voice pained.

Sansa put her hand to her mouth then, her hands trembling. “I told you I was no maid, Jon, and you forgave me for it-“

“He raped you, Sansa,” Jon said, shaking his head in repulsion. “It was not your fault; it could never be your fault for not being a maid – I could care less.”

“I bore him a child, Jon,” Sansa announced, tears flowing freely. “I bore him a daughter.” 

It was like staring at Eddard Starks stone statue all over again; the pain, unbearable. Like knives to his skin, like swords at his neck, he felt as if death beckoned for him as her words washed over him, like poison.

“Mya?” Jon asked, for that is all he can think of; the blonde haired toddler who stared at Sansa as if she were the moon and stars.

“No,” Sansa shook her head, a sob catching in her throat. “No, she died. He killed her.”

There is no sun, now.

No moon, no stars, no light; only darkness in an abyss of pain. An ocean in which he was drowning, the pain that Sansa’s words brought him was enough to make him gasp and sputter in disgust. A child. A babe. A babe born of Sansa, and _murdered_. A babe that was forced on her. _A babe._

This was more painful than any injury he could bare. This was more painful than their knives, or their words, or their hatred. He wished he could make her forget her pain, but Jon knew the pain was not something one forgets; it would be cowardly to think that forgetting would rid her of the pain she now lived with, Jon knew that much. Jon had found that pain would find a way to remind you of its presence again, long after it was thought to be buried.  

It was the same as sadness – always lurking, always … there. Pain, he now knew, became a part of you the moment you feel it. Pain became the smile he wore while ignoring it. Pain became the tears he suppressed. Pain became the unspoken words he so feared. Pain became silence.

Pain adapts. Pain destroys who you once were. Pain becomes you.

And Jon wondered if there was much of Sansa that wasn’t plagued by the pain she carried with her.

“Say something,” Sansa pleaded, her eyes of ice staring into his eyes of stone. “Please, Jon-“ 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jon said suddenly, tears flowing freely. “It was never your fault, Sansa. Never, not once could something like that be your fault. What he did was monstrous, and I’m so sorry – I’m so sorry he did it, and that I wasn’t there. I’m so sorry that you had to suffer alone, and I wasn’t even _there,”_ Jon felt as if he couldn’t breathe now, but his words still leave his lips, despite the great, heaving sobs that find him. “But I swear it, Sansa, I shall never force you to do anything. I shall never hurt you, I would never hurt you, I would never - not ever – make you do what he forced onto you and gods, _fuck_ , I am so sorry. I shall protect you, Sansa – I shall keep our family safe.”

 Sansa began pacing then, her hands clawing at the bodice of her dress. “I can’t- I can’t breathe, Jon. I can’t breathe.” 

Her breathing was coming out forced, and hard, catching on every breath and robbing her of the next. She began to claw at her bodice, panicking as the a tightness began to close at her throat. And suddenly she is back in the Vale, in his chambers and in his bed, hacking at his head with the blood of her babe on her hands. 

He doesn’t know where she has gone, but as soon as she says she can’t breathe, she collapses at the feet of her fathers’ statue – heaving breaths as she sobbed for release. Jon doesn’t know what to do – doesn’t know how to help her – but he thinks of what he would want done if he woke from his one of his nightmares. 

And so he grabbed her face gently in his hands, and began to whisper her name, as Sansa had done to Arya a few weeks prior

“Sansa,” He whispered, “Sansa, it’s Jon. It’s Jon, Sansa. Come back to me, stay with me – Sansa it’s Jon.” 

She sobbed, her hands trembling as she cried.

“It’s okay, just breathe, I’m here with you,” Jon murmured, pressing a kiss to her tear stained cheeks, to her forehead, to the crown of her hair. “I’m here with you, Sansa, it’s okay. We’re at Winterfell – you’re away from there, away from them. You’re with me, now, Sansa – you’re safe now.” 

Sansa inhaled sharply, catching her breath as she put a hand over her heart. 

“Jon,” She breathed, shaking her head as she dropped her forehead to his. “Gods, Jon, I can’t breathe.” 

“You can,” Jon reminded her, “you can, you can, I promise you. You’re just panicking – it happens, Sansa. It’s happened to me before, it’s happened the men of the nights watch. It feels like you’ve fallen from a tree, like the air can’t reach your lungs, but it can. You just need to calm down. Think of me, think of Rickon, think of Winterfell. You can breathe.”

It took her a few moments, of heavy laboured breathing, and of free falling tears, before she wraps trembling arms around Jon’s neck and holds him there. 

“I’m so scared, Jon,” She whispered. “I can’t lose another one, I can’t have it happen again.”

“It won’t,” Jon promised, but he knew the promise was a lie. Babes died all the time, but Jon would curse the gods again if they dared take something else from Sansa. _She’s survived hell, and she deserves no more pain. I won’t let them hurt her again._ “I will protect you, Sansa. I’ll always, always protect you.”

“Promise me, Jon,” Sansa said then, turning away from Ned Stark and crossing to him, cupping his cheeks. “You have to promise me, Jon. Promise me.” 

He stared at her, watching as her eyes of ice cried for him.

“Promise me.”

“I promise,” Jon said, his eyes trapped on hers.

And so, before the ghosts of Eddard and Lyanna Stark, a promise was made. 

A ghost of a smile came over her lips as she stared at him, before she put her lips to his ear and whispered, “I’m with child, Jon.” 

And suddenly, there was light. 

The sun returns to Jon’s world, as does the stars, and the moon, and every ounce of light the world could offer. Winter melts away, and brings spring; a summer so glorious finds Jon and gods it felt _so good._  

“Sansa,” He whispered, shaking his head as he moved his forehead to rest against hers. “ _Sansa.”_

Her name on his lips was a prayer, and he would whisper it to the gods every night if it meant her safety. 

A laugh escaped him then – a flurry of emotions battling within him, and yet it is laughter that escapes him. Sansa inhales sharply, before a smile alights her face and she too laughs. What they laugh at, they don’t know, but there in the crypts of death, a new life blooms and within the darkness they live, light is finally coming.

And so Jon pressed a kiss to Sansa’s forehead, gathered her in his arms, and _laughed_ for he was happy, so deliriously happy with what Sansa had given him. 

_Spring is coming._


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ramsay Snow, bastard of the Bolton seed, herein sight of Gods and Men I, Sansa of House Stark, Queen in the North and the Trident, Warden of the North and Lady of Winterfell, sentence you to die,” Sansa had said, moving her bloodied white skirts from under her feet as she turned to Brienne, taking Oathbreaker – once Ice – from its sheath. “Would you speak a final word?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so last chapter was sappy and full of tears. This one is a little bit less ... like that. I've also realised I probably have around another five or six chapters left, and then I'll be done. It'll definitely be under 20 chapters, I think. Enjoy!

**SANSA STARK**

 

“Are you going to kill him?”

Sansa turned to where Arya stood, her face twisted in a permanent scowl. Sansa turned back to the parchment that had been drafted, listing the crimes committed by Theon Greyjoy. 

“I don’t know.”

“You should,” Arya said as she sat beside Sansa. “Father would. Robb would.” 

“I know.”

“I would,” Arya said finally, her grey eyes turning to stone as she glared at the parchment. “I would kill him for all he’s done and I would do it with a smile on my face.”

“I know,” Sansa said with a chuckle, shaking her head. “I know, believe me, I know.”

Arya gnawed on her lip, looking to her sister with a puzzled expression on her face. “That Greyjoy bitch is probably going to say he shouldn’t die because he was tortured but you can’t listen to that Sansa – you can’t just forgive someone of their crimes because of the pain they have suffered. We’ve all fucking hurt, but that doesn’t excuse any of our crimes.”

“Some would call for your head,” Sansa said then, looking to Arya. “You’ve killed so many – some would call that justice needs to be done for those you’ve killed.”

“People who deserved it,” Arya spat. “But I never killed children – I never killed anyone because I wanted to be powerful. I killed them because it was _justice_.” 

“Justice,” Sansa echoed, chewing on her lip. “Justice is dead.” 

“No, it’s not,” Arya said with a shake of her head. “You killed the Frey’s for what they did to mother, and Robb. You killed the Bolton’s for what they did to our family. And I killed the rest, for what they have done to our family.”

“Asha isn’t like I was,” Sansa murmured, meeting Arya’s eyes. “If anything, she’s more like you but I … when I talked to her, I thought I was staring at myself, begging on my knees for mercy for father.” 

“Who had done nothing wrong,” Arya said. “Who had never hurt a child, who had never done anything without warrant, who was _good_ and they killed him. Theon Greyjoy was sent to Pyke by _our_ brother as a friend of the Starks, and came back a Turncloak. He burned our home, he raped Winterfell’s women, he _killed_ our friends. All because, what, he wanted a crown?” Arya shook her head, a darkness falling over her face. “Give him a crown of blood, Sansa – give him the crown he so wished for when he murdered those boys.”

Sansa bit her lip, looking down to her fingers. “I’ve promised Jon his head – he wants it, just as you do.” 

“Good,” Arya said, crossing her arms across her chest. “At least one of you has a bit of sense.”

“I hate him,” Sansa said suddenly, looking up to Arya. “I do, I hate him. And I want to kill him.”

“Then kill him,” Arya surmised. “Kill him, and be done with it.” 

“And then I would be Asha Greyjoy’s Joffrey,” Sansa murmured. “I would be the one to take away her only living family.”

“Living?” Arya barked out a laugh. “He does not live, Sansa. Jeyne says all he asks for is death, and he says so himself – he wants it.” 

“I know,” Sansa murmured, thinking back to the way he talked of death as if it were a lover and begged her for the feel of his sword at his neck. “I know that.”

“Then _kill_ him,” Arya murmured. “The North needs it, and you are our Queen.” 

“Unfortunately.”

Arya laughed. “No time now to be regretting that crown of yours, Sansa. You were the won that fought for it.”

Sansa’s mind returns to the thought of battlefields, and battle cries; of a bronze crown and a cold winters day before Winterfell.

Sansa chuckled. “I suppose so.” 

They were silent for a moment, listening to the sound of the cracking fire and the sound of shouts from outside, where Rickon was training with Podrick.

“Gendry kissed me,” Arya whispered, her eyes on the fire.

 Sansa’s head whipped up, and her eyes went wide. “What?”

“He was so _stupid_ ,” Arya murmured, her cheeks burning. “I told him I didn’t want him, and he _kissed_ me.”

Sansa hid her laughter behind her hands, smiling broadly. “Did you kiss him as well?”

Arya’s cheeks were truly _burning_ now, and she looked away from Sansa. “ _No_! I hit him.”

Sansa truly laughed now, her sides aching as her laughter ripped through her rib cage. “ _Truly_?”

“Stop laughing,” Arya barked, shaking her head. “Tis not funny.”

But Sansa continued to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” 

Sansa hadn’t even heard her husband enter, but still the sight of him to did not quench her laughter. Arya, though, jumped at the sound of Jon’s voice, her eyes narrowing. “Nothing,” Arya said, before she went to the door. “I’m going to go help Pod.”

Jon looked to where Arya had left, his eyebrows furrowing before he turned back to Sansa. “You’ve annoyed her.” 

“She’ll live,” Sansa murmured, a giggle escaping her as she shook her head and leant back in her chair, her eyes on his. “And when isn’t Arya annoyed with me? She was born _annoyed_ at me.”

Jon chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck before he looked back to her. “How are you feeling?”

Sansa sobered slightly at the way Jon’s eyes flickered from her face, to her belly. It been days since the Crypts, where they had made promises beneath the stone statue of the man that had raised them. He had held her as she had struggled for breath in those dark tunnels, but when they had emerged to Winterfell, their touches became fewer and she became cold from where his arms had once held her. 

But Jon wore a smile when he saw her, and that was enough to warm Sansa.

“Fine,” Sansa murmured, smiling. “I’m fine.”   

“You will tell me, though, if you feel ill?” Jon asked, his brows knitting together. He almost seemed hesitant to bring it up, that Sansa was carrying his child; as if Sansa didn’t want to be reminded of the happiness that he had brought her. She suspected that he thought her too pained by her other loss that mayhaps she would not be happy about this child, but Sansa wanted to assure him that there was no greater happiness that Jon could have given her. When she saw him that first day, atop his horse with Ghost at his side, she had felt a crippling fear at what she was to ask of him. She was to ask him to become her husband, and she knew he would hate her for it. And so there was hate – a hatred that had burned so brightly within Jon that Sansa could see it, every time she caught his grey gaze. His eyes were harsh stone when they had looked upon her, burning with a hatred and condemnation that Sansa had only seen from her time in Kings Landing.

And then she had been attacked by Arya, and his hatred had thawed. Hatred it may have been, a hatred of what she had done and how she had done it, but Sansa suspected that Jon had never hated her – not truly. He hadn’t known her, just as she hadn’t know him; they had known who they once were, and that was a painful thought to hold. For Sansa knew Jon as the boy who would sit at the lowest table within the Great Hall – Sansa knew Jon to be the baseborn child of Winterfell, while she was its lady.

Sansa knew a bastard, a boy she hadn’t truly thought to know, a boy she had blamed for the shame of his parents. She thought she had known that boy – she had thought she knew the child that her father had sired, and called Jon. But she hadn’t; not truly, not ever. She didn’t know Jon Snow – not even when she had claimed him as her beneath the Heart Tree at Riverrun.  

She didn’t know Jon Snow, until he had returned to Winterfell. It was then when she began to know him, from the way he treated Rickon with such a softness that she thought she was looking to her father then, or from the way he joked with Arya, a smile on his lips that held secrets. She began to know him when he would avoid her stare, and whisper _my Queen._ She began to know him when she fell victim to Arya’s sword, and he had told her that he burned with anger for what she had made him do. She began to know him when he began to _try_ to know her, when he had said he wanted happiness and happiness he sought.

She thought then that it must have been hard for Jon to look at her; she was thought to be his sister, after all – the only family he had seen in the years since he had left for the Wall and yet all she could give him was a marriage with the word ‘cousin’ attached to his name. She hadn’t thought, then, of how it must have felt to be lost as a sibling and claimed as a husband.

She had simply thought of what the North needed – and the North needed a man of Northern blood, not a rose of Highgarden or a Southern Lord. The North needed one of their own, a Prince that would protect them, even if he was but a dragon.

Sansa had not realised how happy Jon would be of the babe they had created. She had thought he would regard it with a polite happiness, as he had with many other things when it came to Sansa, but he had _beamed_ when the words had left her lips and he had held her close, and _thanked her._ This man who had condemned her actions, who had _hated_ her, thanked her for being with his child and she didn’t know what to make of it.

It wasn’t until she had laid in bed that night, her hands at her belly and her head in the stars, thinking of children that looked like Jon and Robb, that she realised why he smiled for. She had been a bastard once – a girl relegated to shame for the name she carried and for her father’s lack of honour. And it was then that she had yearned for a family, despite the fact that she had once had one.

Sansa couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have a family, and yet them not to truly yours, despite loving them so. Sansa had lost her family – had lost her father, and brother, and mother, and so she knew what it was to lose a family. But to lose them all, to lose a father and a brother, and not even have their name was to feel so much pain. 

Sansa wondered if Jon had ever thought of his children, and she knew, she _knew,_ that he had dreamt of children as a boy. She could remember when Robb and he would talk of the future, and for how quickly talk of the future would sour for him.

“ _We’re all going to be married here, one day,”_ Robb had said one noon, pointing to the weir wood. “ _Me, Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran … this is where we’ll get married, like mother and father, with grey cloaks and big swords.”_

 _“Mother and father didn’t marry here,”_ Sansa had said then, nothing more than a child. “ _Don’t you listen to anything Maester Luwin says? Mama and Papa got married at Riverrun, where Mama once lived, because Uncle Brandon and Grandfather were killed and so Mama had to marry Papa, **not** Uncle Brandon.” _

_“I listen,”_ Robb had snapped in petulance, his cheeks burning. “ _Go away, Sansa. Go back to your lessons.”_

 _“I was here first!”_ She had pouted, annoyed at her brothers dismissal. “ _And ‘sides, Arya and I won’t be married here. We’ll be married where our husbands live, in their **sept**.” _

_“Arya would rather bite someone than marry them,”_ Jon had laughed then, smiling at the thought of his toddling sister.

“ _And Jon won’t be wearing a grey cloak,”_ Sansa had said. “ _Only Starks can wear a Stark cloak.”_

 _“But Jons a Snow of House Stark,”_ Robb had said in confusion. “ _He will still wear our cloak.”_

 _“Mother won’t allow it,”_ Sansa had said simply. “ _And ‘sides, Mama wouldn’t allow Jon to marry in Winterfell anyways.”_

 _“But this is my home,”_ Jon had said, looking pained. 

“ _This is the Starks castle,”_ Sansa had said. “ _You are only a Snow.”_

And now he would have babes with a Stark name, and with the cloak of dragons.

Sansa could only imagine what it must feel lie, to have sworn to never bear any sons or daughters, for fear they too would have the name Snow, only to be marry a Stark Queen and get her with child within two moons. Sansa could only imagine how strange it would feel to go from bastard, to crow, to prince, to King, to _father_.

“I don’t want you to be … alone, in this,” Jon said, then, looking unsure.

 _He looks so sweet when he worries for me,_ Sansa thinks, happiness blooming in her chest. _I wonder what he will look like when he sees our babe._  

“I know,” Sansa murmured, smiling, “but I haven’t felt ill, not even the sickness of the morn that Maester Marwan keeps telling me of.”

“Maester Marwan also tells Arya that she should spend more time in the Godswood,” Jon said with a laugh. “He’s not the best Maester, Sansa.”

“That’s mean,” Sansa murmured. “He has been very kind to us.” 

“I know a better Maester,” Jon said then, looking to her with those eyes of stone. “I’ve written to him, asking to come to Winterfell for the birth – to help you with the babe.” 

“You wrote to him?” Sansa asked, her chest tightening. “You told a stranger I’m with child?” 

“No, Sansa,” Jon said with a shake of his head, a smile threatening to pour onto his face. “I told him I have need of him – his name is Sam, we’re friends. He’s a Maester for the Nights Watch, although he is in the South at the moment.”

Sansa looked away from him, her eyes resting on the parchment at her table. “I don’t want anyone to know of this, yet, Jon.”

“I know, I know,” Jon murmured, nodding before a smile bloomed on his lips. “Sansa, I … I want you to be safe.”

“I know,” Sansa murmured, smiling. “And I will be.”

 

* * *

 

“Theon, of the House Greyjoy, you stand accused of murder, rape, and treason by Sansa, Queen in the North and the Tident, Warden of the North and Lady of Winterfell. What say you to these charges?” 

He didn’t speak when spoken to.

If pain was a man, it was Theon Greyjoy. Of that, Sansa was sure – for she had known pain as one knows a lover, and so had Theon. A turncloak, they called him, who wore a lazily prepared crown when he had taken Winterfell. That’s what they said, when they called for the witnesses who had survived the taking of Winterfell. A man who was not really a man, when Ramsay Bolton had finished with him. A prince he claimed himself to be, but a prisoner he became.

He didn’t speak when Jon told him of his charges.

He didn’t look up from the ground, his hair shading his eyes as his hands twitched. Sansa watched him, with keen eyes as she waited for his lips to move and for him to either combat the charges or admit to them. He hadn’t spoken when she had dined with him – he never had – but sometimes, when she mentioned a name or spoke of Robb, she could see some sign of life still within him.

Sansa wondered what it must be like for Jon to stare at him, for the Theon Greyjoy that stood before them looked nothing of the boy they grew with. He was scared, and his skin bore the mutiliation that Ramsay Bolton had seen fit to bestow upon him. It should make her glad, she thought, to know there had been some repentence for his crimes, some justice, but it was torture and how torture could make anyone glad astounded her.

For Sansa remembered what it felt like to have a sword cut into flesh, and to have clothes ripped from her person. For Sansa remembered what it felt like to stare at the arrow of a crossbow, half expecting to be butchered at the foot of the Iron Throne. For Sansa remembered having to stare at her fathers butchered head, for it pleased the bastard King so much to see her suffer. 

 _And you enjoyed watching Theon suffer,_ a voice whispered to her, flooding guilt on her mind. She had – she’d enjoyed with every ounce of herself how Theon would flinch when she spoke Robbs name. For he deserved to suffer when he heard of her dead brother, and her dead father, and her near dead mother. He _deserved_ to suffer when he had been the cause of so much suffering for her family. 

Sansa wondered what it must have been like, for Robb, to never be told that Bran and Rickon survived. For according to the men of her small council, when he had received the news that Bran and Rickon had been butchered and burnt, strung from the walls of Winterfell as if to mock their lordship of their own Keep, he had been so inconsolable that he had sought refuge in the warm bed of Jeyne Westerling.

What would have happened, Sansa wondered then, if Theon had never turned his cloak on Robb. What would have happened if there as never a crime against her brothers to be told to Robb, and Robb in turn never sought the comfort of the Westerling wench? Would he have lived, and married a Frey, after all? Would he have come to Kings Landing, and have saved her from those that tormented her?

 _No,_ Sansa thought as she stared at Theon Greyjoy, _no he would have left me there, as he had for all the time he was a King._

Sansa thought then how utterly unfair it was that Theon Greyjoy lived, while her brother was gone. Why was it that Theon had been blessed by the Gods with life, and yet they had ripped Robb from the world; they had butchered him at a wedding, and had made him suffer in the most painful way. How could the Gods do such a thing – how could they reward a traitor with life, and take life away from _her_ brother?

But Theon truly didn’t live any longer. Sansa supposed that he had died the moment Ramsay Bolton began calling him his pet name, and she wondered how truly awful it must have been to have robbed Theon Greyjoy’s name from him. _I’ve sought justice for Theon, though,_ Sansa thought then, remembering how sweet it felt when she had wielded Oath breaker and cut his head from his neck.

Ramsay Bolton hadn’t begged for mercy when she had come for him. He hadn’t even begged for the kindness of a quick death; he had simply smiled and called her Lady Lannister. He had told her all of what he had done to Winterfells ward and her sister, when he still thought Jeyne Arya.  It made for his death to be so much sweeter, when she put the blade to his neck. 

“ _I fucked her good, that wolf bitch of yours,”_ He had sung as Lady Mormont forced him to the ground, “ _and she has a good voice on her, my wife does. She screamed for me, Lady Lannister – sung my name and screamed for relief. She cried for you, too, my Lady Lannister – you should have heard her, it was truly quite upsetting. ‘Sansa, Sansa, this was Sansa’s room’, she would say, Lady Lannister, when I tied her to your bed.”_

 _“Ramsay Snow, bastard of the Bolton seed, herein sight of Gods and Men I, Sansa of House Stark, Queen in the North and the Trident, Warden of the North and Lady of Winterfell, sentence you to die,”_ Sansa had said, moving her bloodied white skirts from under her feet as she turned to Brienne _,_ taking Oathbreaker – once Ice – from its sheath. “ _Would you speak a final word?”_

“ _You can’t kill me, Lady Lannister,”_ Ramsay had laughed mockingly. “ _I’ll live forever inside your sister. Gods, the bitch loved me – maybe she carries my seed, for how many times I raped her-“_

“ _Ah!”_ A groan had come from Sansa’s lips as she swung the sword back, and cut Ramsay Bolton’s words from his lips. She could remember the relief she had felt at seeing his head come off with one strike, blood pouring onto the ground as his body twitched. Sansa had smiled as her men had roared for his execution, and Sansa had felt justice – justice for Arya, who she still thought had been taken by the Bolton bastard, justice for Robb, justice for her mother. “ _Bring me Lord Bolton.”_  

She had saved Roose Bolton for last. She had wanted him to watch, just as her mother had watched her brother have a knife forced into his heart, as his men, and his son were executed at her hand. It gave her more relief, to see the look on Roose Boltons face after she had beheaded his son, then his actual death did.

They had knelt the once Lord of the Dreadfort before her, and she had closed her eyes as she thought of Robbs face. She could remember how she had opened her eyes, and gazed upon Roose Bolton – a man her brother, and father had welcomed into their home, who they had trusted, and who had betrayed her family all for the simple title of Warden of the North. 

 _“Roose Bolton, the last Bolton Lord of the Dreadfort, herein sight of Gods and Men I, Sansa of House Stark, Queen in the North and the Trident, Warden of the North and Lady of Winterfell, sentence you to die,”_ Sansa had said, smiling as she stared at him. “ _Would you speak a final word?”_

 _“And so the Starks are finally sending their regards then, Lady Lannister?”_ He had sneered, his neck against the rock. 

“ _Starks don’t_ send _their regards,”_ Sansa had announced. “ _We swing the sword ourselves.”_

And with that, she had cut his head off.

She could recall how Lord Manderly had dropped his body, and how she had picked up her white skirt as her men cheered, cleaning her sword with the blood of Roose Bolton. “ _Burn the bodies,”_ Sansa could remember saying, “ _and feed their ashes to his dogs.”_

Sansa had taken the justice she deserved against the Boltons – justice for the North, justice for Theon Greyjoy, justice for Jeyne Pool, and justice for her family. And as she looked around the Great Hall, where people from the North had come far and wide, she knew she could not deny them justice, for justice brought what little peace there was left in this world to those that suffered.

The peace she had felt knowing they were dead was a sweet peace. It was a peace that allowed her to sleep, even if her sleep was plagued by mares of the night. 

 _But what of Lady Greyjoys peace?_ The voice asked her then, and Sansa spared a glance for the stoic Lady of the Iron Islands. She would be loyal, even if Sansa was to take her brothers head – but there would be no love shared between the two women. Sansa didn’t mind being hated, if it meant her people thought her a good leader. But it was the thought of what grief Lady Greyjoy might feel that caused Sansa to hesitate.  

It was Jon who led the Trial, speaking first.

“Lord Greyjoy, to answer to these crimes you must speak,” Jon said from beside her, his voice cold.

Sansa felt true pity for him then. She felt pity for his sister, who watched from the sides, and for him, who knew nothing but pain and a life of darkness. But he had raped, murdered, and butchered her people – he had grown with them, he had been their friend, their brother, and he had betrayed her brother, his best friend.

She may feel pity for him, but pity did not take away what he had done.

He did not speak.  

“Call the first witness,” Jon said then, beckoning forth the first in a long line of people who had come to speak at the trial.

It is the father of the children Theon murdered that spoke first. 

“I came home to me wife’s dead body, and to me two eldest boys gone,” He began. The farmer, a man named Harn, was not a handsome man or a man of great means but his eyes held kindness despite the sorrow that filled them. “I was told me boys had been taken, had been abducted by Theon Greyjoy and taken to Winterfell. And I rode for the castle, with me wife’s blood on my hands and had begged the guards to let me in. And when they did, I couldn’t find me boys. All I found was two bodies hanging from the wall, bodies that they told me were the little Lords. But me children were gone, and when I saw those bodies me heart broke for I knew me boys, Jack and Harry, were gone.”

The farmers hands clenched as he recounted the tale. “And so I went home, and told the people to start looking for me boys because I hoped that maybe they ran when whoever murdered their mother came to me home. But we couldn’t’ find ‘em – they weren’t in the woods, or in Wintertown, or anywhere.  When they said Prince Rickon lived, I knew then that me boys were gone – the bodies burnt on the walls of Winterfell and claimed to be the little lords.” 

“Me wife was a good Mam,” The farmer said, fury on his face. “Me boys were good boys – simple boys but good. We were a family, and all I have left of me boys are the thought of their burned bodies. I ask my Queen, and my King to bring me justice for Harry and Jack – justice they never had.”

The man who was once Theon Greyjoy sobbed at the farmer’s words.

Sansa paid him no mind.

“Thank you,” Sansa murmured, as she smiled softly at the farmer. “Please know we grieve for your boys, and for your wife, and that your words here shall be valued.”

Beth Flint spoke, as she had been promised, and Sansa thought, if vengeance was a person, it would be Beth Cassel.

“And my father told him that if was to take his head, he must take it the way your Lord father, Lord Eddard Stark, may the Gods keep him rested, would have killed him. By his own hand – for the man that passes the sentence should swing the sword.”

Jon thanked her, and Sansa watched as he beckoned the next witness forward.

And so they told the story.

Sansa’s back began to ache in the throne as she listened to their testimonies, of all those that had been hurt by Theon Greyjoy. But then her eyes would find Asha Greyjoy, who sat, unflinchingly, as she heard what her brother had done. Sansa wondered what it would be to be the sister of a man who had caused so much suffering. Sansa’s brother was a King – a fallen hero – and so she could mourn him freely. But Sansa knew what it was like to be the daughter of a traitor, where crying for him was scorned as treason too.

Asha Greyjoy stepped before the dais when all that Theon have spurned have spoken, and she steps up with a fearsome look on her face.

“Asha, of House Greyjoy, has come to speak in defence of Theon Greyjoy,” Jon announced, motioning to the floor in front of them. “Speak, my Lady Greyjoy.”

“I come to ask for mercy for my brother,” Asha began, her chin straightening as she stared into the eyes of Sansa. “He has done horrible things, yes, and he has been punished for those horrible things. He was flayed alive by the bastard Ramsay Bolton, and he was kept prisoner for years – tortured, flayed, and burned. He has suffered, suffered for those he has killed in the most gruesome way possible, my Queen.”

“You once begged on your knees for your father, my Queen,” Asha said, looking around the hall, “and they cut his head off. I beg for mercy, and I hope – I pray – that you are more merciful than the lions ever were.”

Sansa could see the way Jon’s hand clenched around his sword, and how his jaw locked. At her words, Sansa felt her chest tighten and anger bloom, but there was something in Asha’s words that made her bite her tongue.

“I beg you, my Queen, that you send my brother to the wall,” Asha said, to the outcries of the hall. “Death is too easy – dying for him would be too easy. Send him to the Wall, and make him to be crow; strip him of his titles, of his name, and send him to the Wall – as any criminal in the North is sent.”

Sansa glanced at Jon then, and saw the fury etched onto his face at the mention of Theon Greyjoy being sent to the wall. She opened her mouth, so to thank Asha for her testimonies, only for the doors of the Great Hall to be opened and for Maester Marwan to interrupt the proceedings. 

“My Queen, my King, I beg pardon,” He said, his robes sweeping across the floor. “But a raven has come, my King, from your Aunt, the Queen in the South. She brings grave news, my King.”   

And with those words, Sansa’s heart stopped.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Goodbye, Jon.”
> 
> “Goodbye, Sansa.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing another Jonsa fic. I can't help it. I'm annoyed at myself. I blame it on the amount of Outlander I've been watching lately. Enjoy!

**JON SNOW**

“She’s summoned you to the Reach?” 

“There is a rebellion,” Jon said simply as he opened a chest, and began to gather what he needed. “I must go and you must rally the Bannermen. The Queen asks for twenty five thousand men, and-“ 

“Twenty-five thousand!?!” Sansa exclaimed, her eyes wide. “Your Aunt demands twenty-five thousand Northern lives? No. I shall not allow it.”

“She demands it, and you are her ally – we are her allies,” Jon snapped, turning to his wife who seemed so scared then. “Sansa, please-“

“Please?” Sansa echoed, her eyes wide. “The war has ended, has only just ended, and there was supposed to be peace. None of my men have settled in to their lives again – uprooting them would be cruel, and all for the Reach? No. No, it is not our battle.”

Jon crossed the room then, incensed at his wife’s reasoning. “The moment you demanded me in marriage, you married the dragons as well – they are asking for twenty-five thousand, and we must give it to them.”

Sansa looked down to where Jon had grasped her arms, shaking her head. “Fine. I shall call my Banner men, but there is no sense in you running off now, Jon. It will take weeks-“

“I ride for the capital tonight,” Jon said, turning back to his chest. “I shall stop in Riverrun, and ask that Lord Tully calls for a further twenty thousand. You will need to write him before I leave, and send the raven off as soon as possible – he’ll need the two weeks it’ll take me to get there to rally them."  

“And so you will go to war with the roses?” Sansa asked, shaking her head. “This is ridiculous – they were loyal. They did not want war, not when I spoke to them at our wedding. I don’t understand-“ 

“They say that Daenerys promised me in return for their support,” Jon said, suddenly, turning to face Sansa. “When Daenerys went to them, she told them that Margaery would be released from her marriage and would be given to me instead.”

“And she broke a promise?”

“She never made it,” Jon said, shaking his head. “She said that they would consider a betrothal, and when you demanded me, she realised that the alliance would be better for us.” 

“And so they were stilted?” Sansa questioned, cocking a brow. “I don’t understand why they would rebel – why they would risk so much.”

“Daenerys also refused to have Garlan Tyrell on her small council,” Jon said, shaking his head. “They’re offended."  

“And so they’re rebelling?” Sansa asked, confusion coursing through her. “I don’t understand – why rebel for a simple matter of a crown? There must be something more.”

“Margaery is dead,” Jon murmured, handing Sansa the letter of his Aunts hand. “They say she flung herself form the highest tower of Casterly Rock, and into the ocean.”

“Gods,” Sansa whispered, shaking her head as her eyes went to the letter.

Jon felt his throat tighten as he recalled that once, Sansa and Margaery Tyrell had been friends. In another life, it seemed, but it was a life that Jon knew his wife could recall vividly – a life where she lived, but only to suffer to the hands of a King with golden hair and to have been saved when her betrothal was broken. To any other girl, Jon would think that the breaking of a betrothal to one such as a King would be heartbreaking – it would be considered as such a formal betrayal that he could only imagine how one must feel.

But he was sure, when Sansa had heard the news, she had smiled.

When she spoke of that time, with what little she had told him, and with what little he had heard from Tyrion, the oly relief she had found in that lion den was when Joffrey had shifted his attentions from her and gave them to Margaery Tyrell instead. When he had asked Sansa about the Tyrells once, when they had been at dinner one night, a strange look had come over her face.

“ _I thought to marry Willas,”_ She had told him truthfully, a faraway look in her eyes. “ _Margaery talked of him often and I … I wanted to leave for Highgarden. They married me to Tyrion instead.”_

And that was all she had ever said of the Tyrells.

But as Jon delivered the news now, he could see the grief that overcame her face. It was a grief he had seen many times before – in the Crypts below Winterfell he had seen that face a great many times – and he had never wanted to see it again. 

“They say we dragons are the cause of it,” Jon said, going his desk to collect some of his papers. “They’re demanding justice.”

“Justice,” Sansa said the word in almost a mocking way as she held her head in her hands, shaking her head. “How many times have I heard that god forsaken word in my life?” 

Jon turned to her then, and felt his stomach churn at the thought of leaving her. They had only just begun to heal – they had only just begun to talk, and now he was to leave. _The babe,_ Jon thought then, his eyes going to his wifes flat stomach and his heart clenching painfully. Surely the conflict would be done within five moons, and then he could return so to see the babe be born?

 _Rebellions have lasted longer,_ a voice whispered to him then, and he feels the pain of it so heavily.

“Sansa,” Jon murmured, crossing to stand before her.

She shook her head, anger on her face then. When Sansa wore her anger, she was truly a beautiful thing, Jon thought. When she wore her anger, she looked like the dragons as they commanded the skies. When she wore her anger, she looked like the wolves that guarded them. When she wore her anger, she looked like the swords that came down on men’s heads. When she wore her anger, she looked like the Queen of Winter; a true Queen of Ice.

She wore her anger like warriors wore their armour, and it was a fearsome sight. Jon wondered if he would be victim to  

The anger burned so brightly on her face then, that even her eyes of ice could not cool the fury with which it burned. “No, don’t you come near me! Don’t you dare come near me when you’re leaving!” 

“Sansa,” He whispered, cupping her cheeks as tears of anger spilled onto her face. “Sansa, I’m sorry.” 

She pulled herself from his grasp, fury in her eyes. “Twenty-five thousand men? And what should I say to them, Jon? Shall I tell them that a dragon Queen needs help for a rebellion they have no interest in being involved in?”

“You should tell them,” Jon murmured as he stepped towards her, “that their _King_ and _Queen_ have need of them, to protect their allies and in turn the North. You tell them that they shall be rewarded heartily for their efforts-“

“With what!?!” Sansa snapped. “With land? With bounty? With money? Where, do you suggest, I get these from?”

“The Reach will comply when they see an army of over a hundred thousand at our backs, and three dragons flying above,” Jon murmured. “We shall make them pay more taxes, we shall make them donate more food-“

“And then they will just rebel again,” Sansa said, leaning over the table to stare at Jon. “Don’t you see, Jon, that this is not a war you will win if you simply punish them. You cannot punish people who are simply doing as their Lords ask them to. Now, they are fine but it is not yet spring and I am sure they are suffering. Put heavy taxes on their shoulders, ask them to work harder than they are now, and make them starve, and they shall rebel again but it will not be at the orders of their Lord – it shall be of their own account and they shall want blood. What would you say then, Jon? When they are starving, and you march back to the Reach? What would you punish them with then?”

Jon clenched his fists, and shook his head. “It won’t come to that.”

“But how easily it can,” Sansa whispered, shaking her head in exasperation. “I have been a Queen much longer than you have been a Prince, Jon – know that when I speak of these matters, I know what I am talking about.”

Jon laughed, then, at the thought that Sansa could dare presume he knew nothing about what he talked of. “I ruled with my Aunt and brother for a whole year – I led sacked Kings Landing, and before that I led the Nights Watch.”

“Pretty words, Jon, but they do not mean experience,” Sansa said, shaking her head.

“And you think you know better?” 

“I _know_ I know better,” Sansa snapped, stepping forward. “I ruled the Vale while there, and when I came North, I rallied men. I commanded them. I did that and within a year I had Winterfell. I have been Queen in the North for more than three years, a year more than you had been a Prince and another year more than when you were victorious in Kings Landing. I have ruled my people in peace for near on four years, and I know matters of war, Jon – more than you know of how to wield a sword.” 

“You ruled from a castle while I fought in the battles,” Jon stepped forward then, angered by how she was belittling him.

While she survived with pretty smiles and polite words in Kings Landing, he was fighting against the Others – he was fighting the Nights King and death itself. He had ruled before, with his Aunt and brother; he had restored a semblance of peace to the six Kingdoms they ruled and yet Sansa sought to credit him with little to no knowledge of how to rule?

He wanted to tell her of all he had done in his life – of how he had ruled the Nights Watch and how _they_ had chosen him, just as her people had chosen her. He wanted to discredit every word that came from her mouth, for it was words fuelled by her fury and thus it was words he could trust as her truth. That’s what he told himself, anyway, for to truly think she thought so little of him made him ache all over.

“I don’t have time to quarrel with you-“

“I’m not quarrelling with you,” Sansa snapped. “I’m telling you that twenty-five thousand men are not leaving the North – not for a Southern Queens plight. You are my King now, my husband, not hers.” 

“I know very well whose husband I am,” Jon yelled then, slamming his hand down on the table. And yet Sansa didn’t flinch, for she too could feel as the anger twirled and cracked in the air, like embers of a flame. “You won’t let me forget.” 

“So you should know that the North will not go,” Sansa shook her head. “They have no business in a war South of the neck, and you know it.” 

Jon crossed to her then, his eyes narrowing and his voice but a whisper as he stood a mere inch away from her, “You promised and swore on your honour as a Stark that you would be a faithful ally if I married you. I married you, I put a babe in you, and now you shall call the banners.” 

“No,” Sansa said, her auburn hair shaking at her shoulders. “No, she can’t have you – she can’t have them.”

Jon grasped her by her arms then, and his expression softened as he stared at her. “This isn’t you, Sansa. You are a Stark, and Starks keep their promises.” 

“You promised to protect me,” Sansa whispered then, tears of frustration spilling over her cheeks. “Where’s that promise now, when you’re leaving me?”

His heart choked on her words, and he shook his head. “I will come back to you, Sansa. I prom-“

“Don’t you _dare_ promise me anything else,” Sansa whispered, her fury beautiful, and her tears glistening on her skin of snow. “I’m _sick_ of having to see them broken.”

“I’m protecting you, Sansa,” Jon whispered, his hand coming to brush an auburn curl from her face. “The Queen needs me.”

“ _I_ am the Queen!” Sansa snapped, her lip quivering. “And I need you!”

And so did he.

He didn’t know what compelled him, but suddenly his lips were on hers.

It was crazed, terrifying, and intoxicating.

Kissing her was like suffocating. With her lips on his, she had stolen the air from his lungs and had rendered Jon completely and utterly stunned. Kissing her was like drowning, water filling his lungs and robbing him of his breath. _No_ , he decided, kissing her was like being burned; like every cell being set alight again and again. The kiss was madness manifested, and he _burned_ for it. 

Sansa softened at his touched, and breathed in to him, filling Jons lungs with air he had been deprived of before she began devouring him. It was animalistic, yet delirious. She affected him like none other – her touch like none other. Crippled by her kiss, and yet reborn from it; for Sansa’s lips were the flames that brought him back to life and he wondered if this is how it should have felt to wake from death.

He was furious with her, hurt at her words, and yet he kissed her, desperately.

And then the anger left him, and Sansa remained.

The kiss softened, from fury filled to filled with fear, and he felt Sansa’s hands hesitantly weave through his hair, and respond with an eagerness he had not expected. Softly, Jon began to feel Sansa in ways that he had never thought he should; felt the curve of her hips, and the way her waist sharply went in. The feel of the river of hair that fell from her back, the feel of the way her back curved … _so beautiful,_ Jon thought as he held her in his arms and his lips softly captured hers. 

She was the most beautiful thing Jon had ever seen, and she was _his._ Not in a way a man owns a horse, or a Keep, but in a war the sky owned the sun and the moon; the way the water belonged to the oceans, and the sand to the shore. She didn’t belong to him at all, and yet he was hers, and she was his, and _gods_ it felt so magnificent that Jon wanted to weep then.

For in his arms was the most beautiful of creatures, and she was kissing him, as if she thought him beautiful too.

He was a bastard named for the snow that covered the Northern lands, and he had known that from the moment you could know things as a child. _Snow_ was a word that accompanied his name from the lips of the Lady of Winterfell, who he could recall thinking was so truly beautiful that her hatred of him must be misplaced. He remembered, as a boy, of how desperately he had tried to get Lady Stark to like him, for something so beautiful could truly not be so horrid.

But she was.

Sansa may share the fire of Lady Starks hair, but she shared none of her poison. As a boy, to think that something as beautiful as Sansa Stark would want him – would cry for him – would kiss him – was to think that snow wouldn’t fall and that winter wouldn’t return to the North.

And yet she was in his arms, and like the moon belonged to the night sky, Sansa belonged to him, and like the snow belonged to the North, he belonged to her.

“Jon,” Sansa whispered against his lips, and he tasted salt as she spoke, “ _don’t go.”_

“I’m sorry,” He whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

“I am too,” Sansa whispered, wiping her tears from her face.

“Send for the banner men to congregate at Riverrun,” Jon said, clearing his throat as he went back to packing. “Send a raven to Lord Tully, tell him to host them, and I shall ride for Kings Landing.”

“You want my army to march on Kings Landing?” Sansa asked, her voice raw and her lips swollen. “The North won’t go that South, Jon.”

“Tell them to flock to Riverrun,” Jon said, “and I shall meet them on Rhaegals back.”

 

* * *

 

Rickon screamed when Jon stood in the courtyard, begging him not to leave.

“I’ll come back,” Jon heard himself say, kneeling before the little boy – _my brother._ “I’ll come back, Rickon. But you must take care of your sisters, for you are the Lord while I’m away, understand?”

Tears streamed down his face, and he let out a wail, holding onto Jon’s cloak. “NO. NO, YOU PROMISED!” 

“Aye, I know,” Jon said, holding his brothers’ arms. It was easy, sometimes, to forget that Rickon was so young but he was but a boy – not yet ten and he had already suffered so much. “But I must go. I must go fight for the North.” 

“They all promise to come back, and then they don’t,” Rickon said, his bottom lip quivering and an anger in his eyes; an anger that looked so like Sansa’s. “If you go, you won’t come back."  

“I’ll come back,” Jon said in a gruff voice, before his eyes moved to where Sansa stood – beautiful in her dress of blue and her tired eyes. “I have a very good reason to come back.”

Rickon started wailing, full blown and complete sobs, before Sansa came to stand beside him, her hand coming to her brother’s shoulder. But Rickon shook her off, and threw himself at Jon, his small hands clutching at his brothers cloak and his wails becoming louder and louder in Jon’s ear.

“Come on, Rickon, it’s okay,” Sansa murmured, prying her little brother’s hands from around Jon’s neck and pulling him back.

Rickon turned, and wrapped his arms around Sansa’s waist then, burying his head into his side and he sobbed. Jon watched as Sansa’s own face folded in grief, betraying her feelings at her husband’s departure, as she ran her hands through Rickons auburn curls. “It’s only for a little while, Rickon, and then Jon will come back. It’s only for a little while, you’ll see.”

“My King,” Lord Manderly said from atop his horse, “We’re ready now.”

Jon looked to him, nodding, before he turned back to Sansa. He had already embraced Arya, but Sansa had been cold to him this morning – had offered him clipped words, and no smiles. He knew it was because he was leaving, and she still harboured the fury that she had shown him the night prior.

But his lips still tingled when he thought of her, and there was still a fire burning within him at the thought of how he had kissed her.

“Sansa,” Jon murmured, aching all over.

This was goodbye.

The first time they had left Winterfell all that time ago, they had not said goodbye. The one he had not said goodbye to, thinking she too busy off packing for the South, and she would soon become the one that meant most to him. The thought of how he could have left Winterfell without bidding Sansa goodbye was almost painful to him now, for as he stood before her he _yearned_ to hold her in his arms and kiss her as he did the night before.

But now she looked at him with those eyes of ice that she so loved to glare at him with, and he knew that if he was to hold her to his chest and tell her that he yearned for her so, she would treat him as coldly as the snow lashed at the ground.

He thought that the next time he should see Sansa; she would be ripe with child – great into her pregnancy with a huge swell beneath her dress. The only signs that she was carrying his child now was the slight change to her chest, and the way her cheeks flushed as she looked at him. Their child made her burn with fury – the child took the ice from the Queen of Winter and gave her a fire that Jon hadn’t expected.

He wanted her to step forward, and to smile at him, with one of those rare, beaming smiles that he so rarely saw from her. He wanted her to hold his cheek, and whisper his name like she had that day on at Riverrun. He wanted her to sigh, and look at him with warm eyes, rather than those eyes that could freeze fire and make men of the South cold.

But she didn’t do any of those things; instead, she stood beside Rickon, her chin up and her lips pursed, like a warrior before battle. If Jon thought Sansa had worn her fury as armour the night prior, she now wore her ice as armour – the coldness to which she looked at him almost making him want to forsake the Queens demands and stay within the warm walls of Winterfell.  

They had just begun to be with each other – had just begun to trust each other – and now he had to leave. He wondered if she would regard him with the same cold eyes when he returned (if he returned), or if she would greet him with the smile he so yearned for. Jon suspected, if he knew her at all, that she would stand in the same spot she stood, and give him the same stare.

Her smile would come later.

When he thought of Sansa, he wondered how it had come to this; how it had come to him wanting to forsake his Aunts demands, and stay with her. How he wanted to lock her in a room with him, and to sit by the warmth of the fire for the rest of their days, taking no notice of the world around them. But he couldn’t do that – not when he had the blood of fire flowing through his veins, and Sansa had the blood of ice through hers.

 _What a song we make,_ Jon thought then as he stared at her, at her loveliness. From her skin of snow to her eyes of ice to her hair of fire, she was the image of the North and Jon wondered how anyone could look upon her and see anything but the ice that flowed through her veins. For when Jon looked at her, all he saw was the North and the home the North promised.

“Sansa,” He murmured again, and her eyes met his, her cheeks flushing at the coldness of the air around them.

He stepped forward then, and forgot her anger, his hand coming to her cheek and his lips coming to her forehead. He put them to her ear then, and whispered, “Write to me. Write to me when he moves, and kicks, and when you think of a name for him, and just … write to me. Tell me everything.”

He pulled back then, and offered her a small smile. “And be safe, Sansa.”

“I shall write as often as I can, and I shall ask you do the same, my King,” Sansa said then, pursing her lips before her gaze dropped. “I will pray for your safe return, and good tidings in the battle to come, my Lord.” 

“Sansa,” He whispered, wanting more than cold words and polite promises.

“Go,” Sansa murmured, looking to the horses. “You have a long ride ahead of you, and it doesn’t do well to delay it.”

 Jon clenched his fists, and gave a nod, before he climbed atop his horse and took the reins. Ghost stood at his wife’s side, and Sansa turned him then, motioning to Jon. “Go, then, with your master.”

“Ghost shall stay at your side,” Jon said, his eyes belonging to hers then. “If I am to leave, something of me shall be here, protecting you.”

Her gaze thawed then, and that fire that Jon had seen last night – that fire that he knew burned for him as it burned for her returning to her eyes as she met his gaze. “Goodbye, Jon.”

“Goodbye, Sansa.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp ... it's been a year. My bad. I'm gonna try to complete this ASAP.

**SANSA STARK**

His first letter comes as snow began to fall.

Maester Marwin had waddled towards her solar, his feet stumbling over themselves clumsily as he announced, “A letter, my Queen.”

“From?” Sansa asked, taking the letter from his outstretched hand. It was when she saw the familiar clumsy scrawl that she realises why Maester Marwin had rushed so.

“The King, your grace,” Maester Marwin breathed, glancing to Lady Mormont who sits beside her. “The raven just landed-“

“Thank you, Maester,” Sansa said, before she had placed the letter on her side and continued with her meeting.

It was later, beneath the light of candles, and when Arya was eating loudly beside her, that Sansa tore the wax and broke the seal.

_ My Lady Wife, _

_ We have arrived at King's Landing, unharmed and with the swords collected from Lord Tully. _

_ I supped with your Uncle whilst at Riverrun, and he expressed his deep concern about the number of men the Southern crown has asked for. _

_ While I agree with your Uncle, now that I have met with my family I realise that such men are needed. _

_ The rebellion is not a rebellion as such, but an act of grief. The Tyrells do not hide their grief for their fallen daughter, who is said to befallen such cruelty during the conquest by the Queen’s dothraki men. _

_ The Queen has informed me that rogue men in her battlement thought to touch, and rape Margaery Tyrell whilst the Keep was sacked. _

_ It is only a letter that Lady Margaery left for her family that tells of such treatment, for when Lady Margaery was presented to the Queen after the Keep was sacked she seemed normal and fair in appearance. _

_ The men suspected have been questioned, but little is being said. _

_ The Queen wishes to go on campaign within the sennight, and so I fear my letters will be far and few for the next moon. _

_ If it is not too much to ask, I wish for you to write of how you and the babe fare whilst I am away. I never wished to be away from you when you are with child, and so I must know that you fare well.  _

_ I will always try to write you, but these are uncertain times and ravens could be far and few.  _

_ Enclosed are letters for Arya, and Rickon. _

_ Jon of House Targaryen, King in the North and Prince of Dragonstone. _

Sansa read the letter, again and again, before Arya cleared her throat. “What does it say?”

“It says Margaery Tyrell was raped,” Sansa said, her hands clenching the parchment with a rage burning deep within her.

Arya stared at the letter. “By who?”

“Soldiers,” Sansa said, shaking her head. To think of Margaery Tyrell was to think of a woman she once knew – a woman who married the man promised for her, a man she knew to be a monster and yet  _ smiled  _ for the marriage promised a crown. Sansa Stark did not think of Margaery Tyrell to be a woman of grief – a woman quaked by fear. She had always imagined Margaery to be stronger; conniving, and quick, and all that Sansa was once not.

And yet at the words of Jon, Sansa doesn’t know what to think anymore. For Margaery Tyrell used her sex like a tool, and her sex, something only she could control, had been used like a sword to cut her down. Sansa had always thought Margaery to be so much more than her – a woman of great beauty, and intellect; a woman that wore her gowns like armour and her smile like a dagger.

Sansa had been a girl, and Margaery Tyrell had been a soldier dressed as a lady, and now she was dead, like so many other woman Sansa once knew. For all that Sansa had thought Margaery different from her, and different from all the other ladies at court, it seemed that Margaery was not so different at all.

Sansa knew what it meant to suffer; to have choice robbed from her, and to have her voice taken and replaced with words of her captors. Sansa knew what it felt to be raped; what it felt to be held down, and robbed of every sense of control. And yet Sansa had found some consolation in her crown, in the knowledge that she had become more than what Petyr Baelish could ever become.

_ Petyr made chains out of my fear, and held the key to a cage he built,  _ Sansa thought,  _ Petyr made me wear the skin of my mother and called me daughter to fill the fantasy he lived in. _

Sansa knew the pain Margaery Tyrell must have felt, to throw herself from Casterly Rock and into the sea. Margaery was not meant to be the wife of a Waters – she was made to be a Queen, and savages took everything she once had from her in the moment they ripped her gown from her back and forced themselves on her.

Arya plucked the letter from Sansa’s hand, and turns it over, reading it through. “I’ve got a letter?”

Sansa handed the letter to Arya, and she devoured it quicker than Sansa had hers.

“What does it say?” Sansa asked.

Arya shrugged. “Not much different to yours, although he’s less …  _ proper. _ ”

Arya sneered the word like one would sneer at an enemy, and Sansa sighed, for she knew how much Arya resented the crown she wore. Crowns, and thrones meant nothing but pain and destruction.

“He asks how you are, though,” Arya said, meeting Sansa’s eyes. “Actually it seems to be all he can talk about.”

Sansa cocked a brow. “Truly?”

“Aye.”  Arya nodded, before she glanced to where ghost laid before the fire. “And he asks about Ghost. Gods, you would think he would a boy of five and ten rather than a King.”

A smile sprouts onto Sansa’s face as her stomach turns at the thought of him. Jon had been an arrangement for her family – not for herself – and yet her husband has become something more than a simple treaty. Their marriage had meant peace between the South, and the North; peace between two Queens whose crowns were too heavy. Their marriage had meant safety for her family; happiness for her siblings.

Sansa had seen how Rickon had needed a father – how Arya had needed someone like her. Whilst they had bettered their relationship as sisters, Arya and Sansa would never be as close as Arya and Jon were – they were just different. Arya was wild storm whilst Sansa was a cultivated calm; a wildling, and a Lady.

“Wouldn’t you miss Nymeria if you had to go away again?” Sansa asked.

Arya shrugged. “She’s always there.”

Silence lapsed between them before Arya said, “You know you can’t wait to execute Theon until Jon’s back.”

“I know,” Sansa said.

“Let me do it,” Arya burst out. “Let me be the one.”

“Arya …” Sansa said, looking away. “I-“

“It will still be a Stark swinging the sword,” Arya reasoned. “And I can do it – you know I can.”

Sansa scoffed, for of course she knew Arya could do it. For all that Sansa did not know about her sister, she knew that Arya’s strength was more than any soldier in Sansa’s armies.  _ Mayhaps she is even stronger than Jon,  _ Sansa thought.  _ Stark women have always been stronger than our men, after all. _

Sansa could see it now; could see Arya swinging the sword of their family, and ending the man that had caused them so much grief. But then she thought of Asha Greyjoy, a woman who has gone from Queen to captive, and she wondered if she could truly judge a man she once knew to death.

_ Robb would kill him,  _ a voice whispered, and Sansa closed her eyes. She can hear the Lady Stoneheart in her mind, screaming for vengeance.  _ His treachery led to the death of everyone you loved. _

“Please, Sansa,” Arya said, grasping her hand. “I … all the people do here is whisper about when I am to be wed. They just see me as a horse ready to be bred, or that mad girl who cuts down her own family. Gods, they look at me like I’ll become a bloody white walker right in front of them - it’s maddening.”

“They don’t think that,” Sansa said, shaking her head.

Arya’s eyes stare at her incredulously, and even Sansa could taste the lie on her tongue. She was the Queen, and so she knew the whispers that her people said. Whispers about a scarred Queen, and a mad Princess, and a wild Prince.

_ Damaged,  _ Sansa thought,  _ we are all as ruined as Winterfell’s walls. _

Sansa sighed. “Okay.”

Arya reached over her chair, and pulled Sansa into a tight embrace. Her breath tickles her neck, and Sansa almost gasped as she felt the tightening of Arya’s limbs. Arya has not let her this close to her in years; not when the fear of hurting Sansa consumed her so.  

“Thank you,” Arya whispered. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was still dark when Sansa climbed the stairs to the Rookery.

The letter she had hastily written beneath the light of her candle after Arya had left her chambers sat tightly in her palm.

The ravens shuffled away from her as she entered, but quickly come when she revealed the seed in her hand.

Sansa watched as the sun broke over the wolfs wood, sighing as she becomes lost to her thoughts. For all that there was no peace in her life, and had not been since she had been but a girl, Sansa felt peace in the high tower of the rookery then. Her babe moves within her, gently at first, as if is just reminding her of his presence, and she knows for all that she knows of pain, she can almost taste the happiness that will come.

Happiness at a babe, happiness with her husband, happiness with her family; it was a promise she could feel stirring within the air of her keep and it was something she had been void of in a long time. Hope was as fleeting as summer, and her hope had died the same day her mother’s throat had been cut and her brother's body had been mutilated.

Once, a long time ago, she thought the Gods were punishing her – asking for repentance with the pain they had inflicted. And yet every death she would be told of, and every tear she would cry, and every man that would paint her skin purple with the bruises of their touch had told her differently.

It had taken a long time to realise that the Gods cared not for pain, or for joy. The gods did not care for Rhaella Targaryens’ pain, or for the pain of poor Lyanna Stark. They did not care for Elia Martell, not when the woman was torn in half by a brutes great sword. They did not care for her mother, when her own son was killed before her. They cared for none of it.

It had been Petyr who had told her that her pain meant nothing to the Gods she prayed to.

“ _ You think your pain means something?”  _ Petyr had asked, mocking her. “ _ You are no more important than any other woman that died in the birthing bed, or whose legs were torn open and whose bellies were filled with bastards they did not want for. Your pain is not special, sweetling – there is a reason your prayers are ignored.” _

The thought of Petyr Baelish is as assaulting as any of Arya’s punches. For all her pain in Kings Landing, nothing was more painful as the sound of his voice. He promised pain in his touch, and the mere thought of him is like drowning. He is the knife in which she has been mutilated. He is the sword upon which her father was killed. He is the words of Cersei Lannister, and the blades of Joffrey Baratheon.

He is her babe, lifeless and bloodied.

He is her pain, and she wishes she could forget it all.

But pain is not like happiness; it is not easily forgotten.

“You are up early, your grace.”

Sansa jumped, shocked at the sound of Maester Marwins voice. “Maester! Gods, you frightened me!”

“I apologise, my lady,” He said, before he looked to the letter in her hands. “May I send that for you?”

Sansa nods, giving him the letter and watching as he shuffles around the rookery. Her hand found her stomach as she tried to settle the fluttering that now consumes her, the constant moving causing nausea to roll in her belly.

“Is the babe causing much sickness, your grace?” The Maester asked as he began to attaching the letter.

Sansa looked to the bump, hidden by thick layers of brown cotton, and sighed. “Not too much, but I am having trouble sleeping.”

“Which, I suppose, is why you are here so early,” Maester Marwin said with a small smile. Sansa nodded, before he continued. “And you must be quite nervous about the Trial?”

“No,” Sansa said quickly. “I’m not nervous.”

“It is quite fine to question one’s convictions when someone’s life will either end or not,” Maester Marwin said simply, meeting her eyes. “You are faced with a very difficult decision.”

“Not so difficult,” Sansa said simply, rubbing her lower belly as the babe continued to move. “Theon Greyjoy essentially killed my brother. It is just to execute him.”

“Aye,” Maester Marwin agreed. “But it is not always easy to order the death of someone you know. Your brother, if I recall, was also faced with a decision such as this.”

“That was different,” Sansa objected. “He … he should not have killed an ally like Rickard Karstark. He was wrong.”

“He was blinded by his hatred, and his betrayal,” Maester Marwin said before he opened the window. “But you are right, your grace, it  _ was  _ a different situation. But I must implore you to judge fairly, and without the feelings of your own leading your decision.”

Sansa pursed her lips, watching as Marwin jostles the bird and causes it to begin it’s flight.

“You think I must send him to the Wall, then?” Sansa asked, wanting something more than cryptic advice.

“No,” Maester Marwin admitted. “Theon Greyjoy killed two innocent children. He should be executed.”

“Then why would you campaign for me to be fair-“

“Just because my opinion may be on execution, does not make it fair, my lady,” Maester Marwin said. “That is the funny thing, about opinions. Opinions do not make fair judgements.”

 

* * *

Theon Greyjoy rarely spoke when she saw him.

The night she would dine with him were often spent in silence, the sound of voice being met by a wall of unresponsiveness that she had become used to. Her justice had been in watching his face become consumed with the agony of knowing what he had truly done. She had explained, slowly and carefully, that not only had his hand been in her brother’s death, his hand was also in her mother's.

He always seemed so agonised, and before, Sansa had truly revelled in it. To see the agony on Theon Greyjoy’s face was a justice that no trial would ever serve. It was selfish, and cruel, but Sansa dressed Theon in the skins of the others that had hurt her and so each dinner became more and more cruel. One night he would be Cersei, whose words had cut Sansa down just as Joffrey’s swords had, whereas the next he would be Petyr.

She hated him.

Truly, and fiercely, Sansa hated Theon. Sansa hated what he had done. Sansa hated what he had said. Sansa hated that he remained, and Robb had died. Sansa hated the injustice of it all, and oh how she  _ hated  _ Theon Greyjoy.

But her hatred was not reasonable, or fair; it was born from grief, and grief was a monster that cared nothing for sanity.

“Theon,” Sansa murmured, closing the door behind her. He does not look at her, but she had not expected him to. “I have come to talk to you, Theon.”

Going to sit, Sansa cleared her throat as she stared at the unkempt man that stood before her. He is a stranger, in the skin of a man from her memories, like so many other ghosts that walk the halls of this Keep.

Cupping her belly, Sansa sighed. “I have not been very kind to you, Theon.”

Theon’s head twitches up, and Sansa watched as his eyes flicker to where her feet are. But not her eyes. Never her eyes. “No, I have not been very kind at all, but you must understand, Theon, that I hate you. I hate you for what you have done to my family. But sometimes hatred can cause you to be unkind – to be cruel, and I wish to … to apologise for unnecessary cruelty. It was not fair.”

Still, he stayed silent.

“It’s funny, no?” Sansa said, rubbing her belly. “I feel this babe is giving me a little more sense when it comes to you, or what little sense I can find in my hatred.”

Theon moves his head then, jolting and abrupt, and Sansa quietens as she watched him. He is still hesitant, consumed by the trepidation of his training. Sansa wondered what Ramsay Snow had truly done to the man before her, but she needn’t to. Sansa knew what the bastard had done – it had been Jeyne who had told her, with steady words, before she had shed her gown and had  _ shown  _ her.

The scars of the skin of her friend were so deep Sansa could still see them. In her skin, there were craters – canyons dug by a blade that sought to only cause pain.  _ He did not wish to kill her,  _ Sansa could recall thinking,  _ he only wished to destroy her.  _

Theon does not look like the man she once knew.

She could still remember him, so clearly, like she was looking through a window into a graveyard of ghosts.

_ “Oh, Lady Sansa, Lady Sansa.”  _ Theon had once snorted, laughing so hard tears streamed down his face. Robb had hit her with a snowball, carefully constructed to ruin the new gown she had worked so hard on. “ _ Did we ruin your fine gown, Lady Sansa?” _

Sansa had been so distraught at the loss that she had run straight to her mother, who had careful instructed both Robb and Theon to her father solar where they were both treated to the feeling of her father's leather belt on their backs. But it hadn’t stopped either of them from smiling so widely whenever they saw her that it would cause a rage so large to form within her at the thought of their delight of her ruined gown.

_ Wicked,  _ she recalled calling them as she had wept,  _ they are wicked, wicked boys who care nothing for Ladies. _

Theon Greyjoy had never been her friend, but he had always been in her life – he had taunted her as a girl, and made fun of her surliness, and whenever she had thought to speak to him, he would remind her that she shouldn’t speak to a Greyjoy ward if she wished to keep her reputation intact.

He had been cruel, and teasing, but he had always been a presence and the sight of what is left of his face was the sight of a past she cannot always remember.

“I remember you, from before,” Sansa said, her mind consumed by memories gone and boys dead. “This boy who would tease me for being a lady, and for caring too much for gowns and songs and all the things a little girl should love. But I didn’t hate you, not even then, for I thought you wrong and I right, for being a lady was everything I wanted to be and I think it was everything you thought I would be. I remember, once, when I was rowing with Robb that you said I was a ‘silly little girl who will be sold to the first ugly lord that wants me, birth ugly babies and embroider like a good lady does until she dies’.”

Sansa laughed at the memory, for it seemed times had changed so much that it was almost incomprehensible. “Sometimes, I think that you are not that man anymore – that when Ramsay Bolton cut off your cock, if you’ll excuse my un-ladylikeness, that the man I knew and the man who betrayed my brother and killed two boys who did nothing to deserve death, was not the man who survived the war. But I never hated the man that I grew with – the man who teased me and laughed at me and did nothing but taunt me, for he was friends with my brother and sometimes you would make him laugh.”

Sansa sobered then, smoothing her hand over her belly as she thought of the day she was told what had happened to Robb. “But then you betrayed him – you sacked our home, and killed it’s Keepers for no reason but to show what little strength you had. And my brother, well, you know what happened to him, Theon.”

A strange noise came from Theon’s throat, but Sansa could not stop herself. “I am not that girl you teased any more, Theon – I do hate you. Gods, I hate you more than you can imagine and you shall never find forgiveness in me for you, for everything you have done led to my greatest pain. And for all that you once said that I would do nothing but embroider for the rest of my life, I am not as I once was – when I was taken from Winterfell the girl that left was destroyed piece by piece until I was given a different name and a different House and a different family.”

“Alayne Stone was a mask I wore for as long as I had to until I could become Sansa Stark again,” Sansa murmured. “For years I could not speak my own name, could name think of my own mother or brother or family for they were not truly my family. And every time I would think to bring up Winterfell to the man that made me call him ‘father’, he would say: ‘do not fret, my dear Alayne, for Winterfell is in pieces’. And you did that. You destroyed my home.”

Sansa goes quiet for a moment, her heart a hummingbird in her chest before she casts her gaze to Theon once more. He trembled beneath her stare, and it is then she knows she was being cruel.

“I’m sorry,” Sansa apologised. “I didn’t come here to be cruel … truly, I didn’t. But I also didn’t come here as the girl you once knew, Theon – I came here as Queen in the North. And the north is demanding your head, but your sister is begging for you to keep it. I … I don’t know what to do, truthfully. For all that I speak of crowns and thrones and games cannot bring myself to decide whether I want your head or not, for every time I stare at your sister I think of how I once begged for my own fathers mercy. So … I have come here to ask you something.”

It was not as hard as Sansa had thought it would be, to ask the question.

“Would you rather die, Theon,” Sansa asked. “Or would you prefer to be sent to the Wall?”

Theon’s head truly snapped up then.

Sansa is shocked, when she saw his eyes meeting hers – the first time he has truly looked to her in moons.

“I-“ The word stumbled from his lips, and he seemed to regret the small sound instantly, for his face becomes torn into agony at the sound of it.  _ Reek,  _ Sansa recalled,  _ that is the name Ramsay Snow had given him after mutilating him so. I wonder if he even knows he is Theon Greyjoy anymore.  _

“Well?” Sansa asked, trying to hide her impatience. “I’m asking you if you would prefer the Wall, or the sword?”

“Why?” He asked, his voice rasping against his throat, broken and unsure.

Sansa doesn’t truly know the answer to his question herself, so instead she said, “If I know what you wish, and what will be the … most merciful option, than I will seek to remedy it and give you whatever mercy I can. That does not mean I can guarantee your life, but … it means I can make a decision.”  

It was a long time before Theon supplied an answer, and for a moment Sansa wondered if the man before her had lost his tongue.  _ He is a ghost already,  _ Sansa thought,  _ breathing in air that can’t even fill his lungs. _

“Die,” Theon said finally. “Let me die.”

Sansa was surprised; surprised at his candour, and his voice. Theon Greyjoy had barely spoken ten words to her in the moons since his capture, and yet within this moment he seems more like the boy she once knew than the man she has come to know – the whimpering shell whose body was torn and whose name was taken from him.

It is but a moment but for that moment Sansa knows that within her storm of hatred, and grief, there is pity and sadness and a sorrow so deep within her that when she finds it suffocating her organs, she wondered if she truly hated this man as she said, or if she simply wanted the reminder of all that he had done to be gone from her life.

_ Winter is coming,  _ Sansa reminded herself,  _ and Winter does not give mercy. I must be Winter. _

Sansa nodded, and stands. “You shall see your sister, before the trial concludes.”

Theon stared at her as she began to walk away.

“Sansa.”

Her name on his tongue causes her back to straighten – the rod of steel that she has rooted in her spine feeling as if it could bend at any moment. She had heard him say her name a thousand times before, when he was her brothers closest friend. It would be said in jest, as Robb would so often laugh at teasing her.

Sansa turned to look at Theon, meeting his eyes. It is then she knows, truly, that whatever is left within him is content with his decision.

“Yes?” Sansa asked.

Theon swallowed deeply, before he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m … I’m sorry.”

Sansa’s hand finds the door, before she flees – her stomach churning like the rapids of a river. Sansa was within her chambers in moments before she was retching into a bowl near her vanity, her stomach emptying its contents as she imagines Theon Greyjoy’s head spiked along the barracks of Winterfell’s walls.

_ It is justice,  _ Sansa thought,  _ but why does justice feel so wrong?  _


End file.
